So, as I’ve mentioned in the roadLook bike bio and throughout TLTC, I’ve had a mystery tyre issue on roadLook for a few months. Just random flattery. Repeatedly. Right after I installed super annoying hard-to-service Conti Gatorskins. With my bikes, particularly my road bike, I get no flats for months, then a string of them. And not like a repeated flat from the same burr or whatever, but randomly generated fails. In this case, I got maybe two pinch flats, two true external punctures and at LEAST two valve fails. Anyway, the problem was solved once and for all (I hope) when I recently replaced both the tyres, which I grew tired of wrestling, and the tubes, cleaned/inspected the rim and tape, and started over with the sweet red track tyres.

Funny thing the night I did this. I could have sworn cigawee was involved, but it wasn’t. It was just a circumstance where I was experiencing physical phenomena I hadn’t considered before, and it took me by surprise. And I was in a weird mood, and thus, documented it.

When I sat down to replace the Contis that night, I started by inflating the flat to see if it was slow enough that I could detect the source. But instead of inflating, the pressure built up in the valve and the pump. This sometimes happens with my pump, so I adjusted it and tried again. Same result, but it was different than the usual. The pump was registering a high pressure and staying constant. So I partially unseated the tyre in order to examine the tube to see if it was getting any air. There was none. But when I pumped again just to see what was what, the exposed portion of tube suddenly expanded out of the tyre altogether, like a balloon animal. It was so surreal that I didn’t even stop to consider why. I just pulled the tube from the rim and checked it out in it’s weird Lovecraftian glory.

The tube, out of the tyre and exposed, still maintained this massive air goiter. I was tripping out. The more I pumped, the bigger the goiter got, but the rest of the tube stayed limp. After thinking about it, I realized that I had superdeformed the rubber at that one exposed area, and it was now weaker and hot and more ductile than the rest, so the air pressure went to where there was the least resistance. It was funny, it took me a minute to think this through, because I’m so accustomed to thinking about such things the way I did in Physics classes, where the container is a constant physical state, that I hadn’t considered what happens when the container itself has variable material properties. So, whatever, I had a weird, wrong tube.

I deflated it, massaged the tube, then inflated it again to see if the same behavior would occur, because I was just being weird at this point, and it was late. And of course, since there was no tyre binding the tube, the entire thing stretched out, yielding a supertube. I was all amused about it, for whatever reason.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of random nothing, but it all lays the groundwork for this:

By containing all but the tubery around the valve, I was able to create the world’s first old timey tweed tube.

Tell me that moustache doesn’t rock!

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ok, so do we remember THIS guy, charles diez? he’s the asheville, NC firefighter who one day saw a guy riding his bike with his son in a child safety seat and decided that it was too dangerous so he shot the dad in the head. luckily, the bullet was a little off and only lodged in the cyclist’s helmet. and according to superior court judge james downs, that’s totally cool.

first the charge was bumped down from attempted first degree murder to felony assault. then the judge decided that the fact that diez had been a firefighter since 1992, in addition to his military service, along with testimony from former colleagues about his good character, were mitigating factors, and chose to sentence him to 15-27 months. then all but four months of that sentence were suspended unless diez breaks the law again in the next 30 months.

uhm.
REALLY?

so let me get this straight — put in some time in public service, get some good character witnesses, and at least in north carolina, you are then entitled to aim a deadly weapon at someone’s head and pull the trigger, as long as you miss.

that’s logical.

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I the course of gathering my Ghostal parts, I had a failOrder followed by a failOrder. First, some sweet titanium headset spacers arrived from overseas, and were 1", not 1 1/8". Dang! Then, my top cap with compression bolt arrived… ALSO 1". Two different vendors (an ebay seller and icycle) and two different customer service inquiries.

However, while awaiting resolution, I ordered bought silver spacers, which look a little better when on an all chrome arrangement. And while I may still just use the star cap I already had on Ghostal, the upside was that both shippers surprised me: both returned all monies, including shipping, and let me keep the properties.

So, you know, my part stash is further fattened, this time in the 1" steerer department..

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a while ago, i got a chrome bag, and i reviewed it HERE, HERE and HERE.

reading those reviews, you can see that i love it more than any other accessory, cycling or otherwise, that i’ve ever owned.

but i’m posting up another little win for chrome, this time for their store experience. little backstory … in hauling around everything from tools to goats in this bag, i’ve come to realize that it will hold damn near anything, but that where it fails is expandability. if you exceed the 2000 square-inch cargo capacity, or if you need to lash something to the outside of it (which i’ve done with a wheel and with a frame), you don’t have very many options. so i got to thinking. extension straps! if they made straps, say 2 or 3 feet long, with a female buckle clasp on one end, and a male buckle clasp on the other, you could extend the strapping capacity to where you’d have anything you wanted actually lashed to the outside! essentially, with extension straps activateds, you’d have a SUPER long strap that came out from the underside of the bag, around whatever you’re lashing, and then attach to the bag’s flap, which would be either over or behind whatever the giant thing is. it would look a bit like so…

so i swung by their store last week and asked if they had em…

ME : "do you guys have any extension straps for these bags?"
FLOOR GUY : "whaddya mean?"
ME : "well, if i’m trying to carry a large box, sometimes it doesn’t fit in the bag and i have to lash it to the outside. and these straps don’t extend long enough to really secure something like that. so i was thinking it would be cool if you had just straps, 2 or 3 feet long, that would add length to these and therefore allow me to strap down huge stuff."
FLOOR GUY : "whoa, i’ve never heard of it, let’s check with (front desk grrl)."

at this point, we went to the front desk grrl. i explained the same thing to her and she reacted much like "floor guy."

FRONT DESK GRRL : "that’s a great idea, and i seem to remember that we’ve made em for people before, but we don’t carry em. hold on, let me check with (bigwig guy)."

she called upstairs to bigwig guy, who was a manager or the owner or whatever, clearly in charge, and he rushed downstairs to meet with me face-to-face. i tole bigwig guy what i was after and he tole…

BIGWIG GUY : "yeah, i’ve made those before, but i don’t stock em because they’re kind of a specialized need. but what i do is that i make em custom for anyone who asks, so give me your name and number and i’ll ring you after thanksgiving."

now, when the FUCK was the last time you interacted with a product provider who was willing to go out of their way like that? not JUST to cut you some preferential(ish) treatment, but to acknowledge that you’re using their product to it’s fullest extent and that you want more? and NOT to berate you for some ego blow that you’ve caused them by finding a need that they missed? and to further be willing to provide you with your required modification?

it was an outstanding experience and i’ll pop back in here when i receive them, letting you all know how they work.

i will say this — i got the impression that rolling in there looking like i do, and asking about "carrying large boxes" with my bag, the easy misconception would have been to assume that i’m a messenger, and thus to be WAY more willing to work with me to make me happy. i don’t know that that’s the case, but it felt that way, and i thought it might be important to note it.

anyway, BIG cheers to chrome bags. you guys fucking rock.

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i’ve been in the market for new arm warmers for months now, having totally blown out the elastic at the tops of mine. and when i was at the SF BIKE EXPO last weekend, a seller gave me a pair for free, cause they had a pretty sizeable hole in em.

while one could easily argue that a hole in a "warmer" sort of defeats the purpose, i would counter that "free" gives you a good testing platform to start from, and that’s where i find myself today.

when i first put them on, i was surprised to feel that they’re TIGHT. not cut-off-the-circulation-to-your-hands tight, but significantly tighter than i’ve experienced before. doing some research, i found that this is their "compression" technology, and is intended to support your arm muscles better, in addition to providing some kind of warming benefit. anyway, to me, it makes them feel significant. like i know they’re THERE. i feel more secure almost. 100% psychological, no performance benefit at all there, but bonus, nonetheless.

one of my favorite details is that they’re long enough. i’m a long dude — long arms, long legs — it’s actually kind of hard for me to find pants, for instance, that accomodate both my waist and inseam, and when it comes to armwarmers, it’s no different. others have been too short, so i’m forced to either pull them up only to a certain point, or to leave a bunch of wrist exposed. not so with the giordanas.

the comfort level is WONDERFUL. they have a nice, soft, almost fleece-like surface on the inside, versus the basic shiny lycra which makes up the outside surface. very comfy.

they’re quite warm, too. it’s not been frigid by any means the last few days, but i do ride relatively early in the morning, when it’s too cold for bare arms, and these are doing the trick in their intended department.

i’m seriously considering ponying up the money for a new set of these if that hole grows at all, and if i do, i’m going top-of-the-line — their $60, "FR-carbon bodyclone" warmers, which more closely follow the contours of your arms (slight bend at the elbow, et cetera), and which boast thicker fabric where your meat is light (forearm) and thinner where your meat is thick (bi/tri, upper arm).

these are VERY cool (heh, i guess i mean "hot"), though i offer one caution — if you’ve got big ole man-arms that are more heft than shape, stay away from these. they’re not for weightlifters. they’re for us wiry fucks.

8/10 CLANKS! lower than a perfect 10 because the seams don’t look to be too resilient, and because they only fit one body type.

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I’ve snuck into the bikeBasement to work on the Ghostal project a few more times since last update. Most of the work down there has been archeological. I’ve gotten t the point where I have MOST of the bike shop guts laid out on a series of surfaces, enough so that the items that were still missing were apparent. It was clear that there was a box of missing bikery, buried somewhere in the boxes compressed for storage. Either that, or the box went on a walkabout. So I had to dig in there and find out which it would be. For this, I needed to wait until I had some time during the day, so as not to disturb any sleeping wee Z’s above. And I had that opportunity after a meeting last week, and dug away. As it turns out, I had TWO missing boxes of bikery: one had my panniers, hydropacks and one of the missing parts for the Ghostal project; the other, the box I was thinking of, with bars, seatposts, and assorted small gifts, including the remainder of the missing Ghostal parts. Success!

Update 001: Bars. I finally had the opportunity to get the bars sorted. I needed to wait for the proper grips on this, because the original set had hollow ends and the more I thought about it, the less I wanted this. I originally WANTED the exposed ends because I like to put blinkies on drop bar bar-ends. But in this instance, the concept overrode the safety factor (ssh)… I just didn’t want black blinkie tips on this bike. I looked for chrome silver, no luck. I penciled out a homebrew version, then decided it would suck to pull them out to turn them on and so on, and here we are. So, I got Kierin type solid grips and went to work putting them on. On the first go-round with these bars, on Fix-e’s last makeover, I had a hell of a time, because I tried to do this without the lube method. Strong arming these things doesn’t really bring pleasure to your tendons. So this time, i used the methods I ultimately used on Fix-e, but right out of the gate. I was unprepared for how easy it was this time. Couple of squirts of Windex on the bars, and zipppppp , the grips went right on. My last pair were very tight and I loosened them up with a hot water soak prior. But these were just right. The white grips on chrome bars? Yes, it’s very aesthetically pleasing.

Update 002: Make it Stop! The majority of the work done since last time involve the stopping system, hence the post title. Brake, Lever, Pedals (backpedaling) and connective tissues. Were I a wicked skid-stopper, I could have thrown tyres into this category, ha. That’s Lung’s department. Anyway, I like using salmon brake pads from Kool Stop. Actually, I really like the combo salmon and black pads I use on the Villain, as they are a great compromise between sticky for wet and durability for normal road conditions. But I planned on all salmon this time because I’m running non-machined sidewalls and I wanted extra sticky. As it turns out, this ended up being another source of delay. The brake caliper I ultimately chose to use is a Tiagra from Shimano, and it employs an integrated brake shoe and connection bolt to the pad itself, vs all my other brakes which use a shoe and a pad insert. So I had to source new shoes, and pads for them. I got these, slapped it up, flipped it, and rubbed it down, and here we are: salmon pads in new shoes, ready to go.

I also finally got to put my brake lever on one of the missing items from that lost box) and spent this morning, actually, working on the brake cabling. That should be a no-brainer, but there’s something a little different this time around. It’s intended to be a fun surprise, so I’m not going to discuss it further, yet, but it involves specialized hardware. And it’s not as cool as you no-doubt imagine. But cool all the same. And for my particular needs, VERY cool.

Update 003: Propah Seatpost: I had used a temp seatpost so far, just to see how the sweet, sweet honey Brooks Swallow would look, being one of the only color items on the build (yes, it looks Sweet As) which was the old post from Fix-e. Rusty, banged-up, with old bolt-pinned seatclamp, weighing 33 pounds. I finally received my proper post just before the weekend, which is aluminum and has the nice allen bolt seat attachment. Solid! Out with the old, in with the new. JoBlue will no doubt be disappointed at the seat angle.

Update 004: Finally, I recovered the OTHER missing items from the lost box, my Shimano halfsies A530 pedals, which I threw on with a spot of grease. And for the first time, I didn’t spend valuable minutes threading them backwards and being annoyed about it.

So, we’re down to tyres, rims and drivetrain, which, if all goes well, will be the final step. Ihave everything I need, and the only thing stopping me from completion is that one of the rims got jacked up in shipping and I ave to dremel and sand the clincher a bit so as to avoid the flats!

One last note: guess who was effing lurking in my Ghostal parts bin. THATS RIGHT!

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probably shouldn’t be posting this on the interwebs, lest the coppers figure out what’s what, but i thought THIS was a great way to stick it to your city’s anti-brakeless laws. that’s a FAKE COASTER BRAKE ARM there on the hub. brilliant.

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so i don’t think it’s law yet, but philly’s powers-that-be are considering a SWEEPING number of changes to cycling laws, including, but not limited to…

+ mandatory bicycle registration, including registration plates affixed to your bikes.
+ $1000 fine for riding a bike without a brake.
+ increased fines for riding on the sidewalk or with headphones.

(you can download and read the official releases HERE and HERE.)

ok, so i can get behind the last one — you shouldn’t be riding on the sidewalk. it’s dangerous to everyone. headphones are also dangerous, though i ride with them every day. but i could at least understand that law, despite probably continuing to break it.

and the fine for riding a bike without a brake is going to come down to wording. believe it or not, MOST cities have laws such as this on the books (i believe SF is actually one of them), but the way in which they define "brake" usually includes a fixed hub. the language usually defines a brake as a device which can stop the bike from a speed of 15mph in 15 feet in normal conditions. most skilled fixed-wheel riders can do this easily, and thus are not "brakeless," according to the law. so fine, i guess if it came down to it, and the wording was right, i could even manage my rage on that one.

the bicycle registration, though, is UNTENABLE. there is NO MOTHERFUCKING WAY i would ever pay a city’s government a fucking registration fee so that i was "legally allowed" to ride my bicycle. that’s madness. and a registration plate? you REALLY think i’m gonna sully up my murdered-out streetBomber with a fucking city registry plate? you are clearly smoking ammonia. and what of vintage collectors? i’m certainly no collector, but even i have one bike from the early 70s, and one from the early 80s, both of which classify as "vintage," and especially in the case of the 80s bike, are more valuable because of it. do you really think i’m going to utterly destroy my resale value and sweet sweet aesthetic with your fucking official registry? here’s a hint — I’M NOT. what’s fucking next, registering my television? my toaster oven? my bed?

this is insanity. i wish the so-called cycling revolution would’ve never started. i wish everyone was still bitching from within their continentals at me and the 5 other people who rode our bikes in the city. i wish we were still outcasts and rebels.

fuck this.

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ok, listen. THIS is so fucking chock-full of hatery goodness that it almost makes me want to STOP riding a bike. not really, but read it. you’ll see what i mean. i especially love the part about the "chinamen" who would be happier looking out the window of an oldsmobile.

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Bay Area bikebuilder f8t is offering belt-drive customs starting at $1900 a frame/drivetrain. Custom being made to order, not necessarily style, that I’m aware of. That’s a lot of scratch. However, I continue to desire to build a belt-driver… I just don’t think I’m THERE yet.

http://www.f8cycles.com/fit

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