Wrongbike has known many forms over the years. It was my second, and really proper, bike build, the first from scratch. It was set up as a conventional fixed gear for a long time, then lived as a rando-type setup for awhile. Now it’s going lean again. One detail I’ve become wedded to is wrapping bars with elkhide. However, as I prepared to do same on this bike, it occurred to me, fortunately in time, that with a quill stemm, unless you can unwrap that bar covering, it’s ON there. You can’t unwrap elkhide: it compresses, fuses a bit with the underlayment I use, and the strings are waxed and get messy if you try to unsew it. So, thinking ahead for once, I decided to convert to a conventional modern stem with a 4-bolt bar camp. That meant using a threaded to threadless adapter. Both stem and adapter I picked up at Recyclery last week, and Lung is bringing in some bars so I can test a few things, and soon, the wrapping will commence.

Once you mentally process the fusion of old timey lugging and new timey parts, it’s just fine. The polished silver components keep it classy, just like on Carpetbagger. You could go black, but then you’d have to make everything modern and blacked out (though not quite murdered out) and make a point of it. But not today.

Long live Wrongbike!

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This morning was my first ride on Crook after the new wheel, cog, and tyres.

Thoughts:

1. The cog is not as attractive as my Sugino system, which had a nice orangey-tint to the gold finish. But it’s still gold. Halo brand. 17t. Dira Ace lockring.

2. The hub is not as attractive as the previous hand-built hub, thanks to the former’s gold finish that matched the cog quite well. But I’m back in black, at any rate. And whole rear wheels with H+Son and All-City hubs for $160? Can’t beat it.

3. This was my first time ratcheting down a cog and lockring designed for skidding from the get go. All of my previous conventional cog wheels I just cinched the cog down, cinched the lockring down, rode out, re-tightened the lock ring once, and was otherwise good to go. Because, you know, no real backward forces except for back pedaling. But introduce those forces to a bike like that and the weakness in the set-up is immediately apparent. Witness Carpetbagger on first ride with Lung. He hoped on that fresh build, did some skid, and loosened the cog and lockring. So the cog could have gotten a hair tighter, and thus when it did get tighter as I rode over, the lockring was no longer snug against the cog, so when he skidded, he unwound them a bit. Same with the previous wheel on this bike, with the Sugino system on it. All my other bikes I’ve been retightening the lock ring throughout each ride to be safe. Anyway, here, I did a different method: hand tight cog, then chain whip tight, then only modestly tight lockring just to keep it in place. Then I rode up the hill by my house aggressively twice. Then came back, tightened the lock ring, and went to work.

4. I’m tightening that wee fucker all day. I felt some slip after my first long skid, but the cog seemed in place, so I tightened the ring more. Again, when I got to the office, after only a modest skid. Again before I took off this afternoon to do some little downhills around here. Now the lockring is tight and not moving. Still felt a bit of slip. Can’t see the cog going anywhere though. I’m keeping my eye on it.

5. Those tyres are glorious. I’m skidding nice and long now, and it’s easier to get out in front of the bike now. FUN!

That is all! We’ll see if I have a gloomy report tonight, or more good successes to follow…
I still want to take a chain whip to this cog again at home, just to see. It stands to reason that torquing it up hill was more force than I’m going to muscle it, but there was that pernicious microslip I felt. I may pull the switches from the bars and flip it and do the chain method.

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next category of NAHBS builds for you is "unique concepts" these are bikes which stood out as … well, unique. things i hadn’t expected or things i hadn’t seen before or just really imaginative things.

first up is the EVIL DEAD BIKE, which i gave it’s own post already.

next up is this crazy madness, a reconstruction of what’s called a "whippet," a bike which was very successful from 1885 to 1888, before the invention of the pneumatic tire. this was made by a frame builder who worked from a line drawing and some museum photos…

since bikes of the time had solid rubber tyres, they were super uncomfortable, and the whippet attempted to compensate for that with details such as a front shock…

and a mid-body shock…

the brake was a crazy contraption which utilized a lever that pushed on a bar that wrapped around the body of the bike (the silver bar just above the frame’s top tube)…

to a metal lever and plate in the back, where the plate rubbed against the solid rubber tyre…

apparently they were very uncomfortable to ride because they were too squishy, and since they had a total of seven pivot points in the design, tensioning the chain would gradually cause the two head tubes to become misaligned, resulting in the front scissor linkage losing functionality when the bars were turned. but still. a crazy bike.

next up is this WTF track bike…

personally, i can’t see any functional reason for this bike to exist, but this is a show, so there you go. it may look like the steering column is fixed, but in fact the stem (polished) is separate from the frame (gray), which is why there’s that other little connection point going from the head tube to the top tube.

next up, the "mudbike." i fucking LOVE this bike and it’s only real unique concept is the paint job. it’s a CX bike that is painted to look like it’s got mud spray on it….

it may not look like much in that picture, but upon closer inspection, you can see that each individual dot is hand-placed using a spoke nipple dipped in a different shade of brown and then touched to the frame. it has over 1500 individual dots over the frame and fork, entirely hand-done…

another one i just absolutely loved was a tandem specifically designed for a parent and child to ride, but unlike other kid bikes, this one put the kid in the front…

now look closely at how that works. the kid’s handlebars are fixed, they don’t do anything. the parents’ handlebars are what turn the front wheel, as on a front bucket cargo bike. but the kids’ pedals turn in conjunction with the parents,’ as on a proper tandem. i LOVE this bike. i’m a huge fan of the kid being on the front (as a rule), because they can actually see what’s going on and begin to feel what it’s like to ride independently.

next up is a crazy and unique brake detail that i noticed on an otherwise simple build…

i don’t know what’s up with that dodgy swede, but note the brake "levers." the brake cable is strung between two fixed points (with the housing on the inner point, as per the usue), but it has beads on it. so when you grab the beads and pull, you’re actually pulling the cable itself. pretty trick.

and finally, the deLorean bikes. these bikes aren’t made by DMC, obviously. they’re homage to the classic stainless steel, gullwing-door sportscar which may or may not be capable of time travel…

they had a sweet, simple city bike with a belt drive and an internally geared rear hub…

and a beautiful roadie which, while boasting questionable wheels, did have a sweet champagne cage on the seat tube…

stay tuned for more NAHBS image posts. i think next i’ll post up the fat tyre bikes.

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it’s been a long time since i’ve put a process log up on this bike (formerly called "bianchiWhite"), and in that time, i’ve gotten a lot done. in fact, i got everything done except for wrapping the bars and installing pedals and a chain. but i couldn’t really do much of that until i got to the big scary part. scary in that i’ve never done it before — mounting the tubular tyres.

as you may or may not remember/care, i’m trying to keep this bike MOSTLY vintage. it’s got a modern saddle on it, as well as a modern crankset (which will change to vintage one day), and modern hubs. but everything else is vintage or NOS. this is why i chose to go with tubular tyres. but tubulars, while much lighter and arguably stronger than typical road clinchers, require a lot of technique and madness to install. they have no inner tubes and they’re glued onto the rims, then held in place by the pressure you pump into them. the glue is pressure activated, so the higher the tyre pressure, the tighter they are.

anyway, it’s a fucking toxic affair, requiring latex gloves and a painter’s mask and messy glue and sandpaper and all manner of bullshit waiting around for shit to dry or not completely dry or whateverthefuck, but i got both tyres mounted over the weekend and it looks BALLER. over the next couple days i’ll string the chain and wrap the bars, then install pedals some time next week.

stoked!

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I mentioned to Lung over the weekend that I was aggravated by the current state of Wrongbike. It was, most recently, built up sort of like a rando, with wood fenders, a leather portage strap, leather wrapped mustache bars, weird long brake lever imported from the land of the rising tole, and a front porteur rack with a folding pannier basket. However, while I’ve ridden that thing around MV on townie rides, grocery or coffee runs (it was the best coffee bike yet, having so much vertical strappy space in the basket for the coffee cup) this time, I rode it home after a late evening at work. In freezing cold. In normal clothes. Everything was wrong about this ride. No strap ins, poor lighting, saddle dropping from tension issues, stem too tall, bars pushing me too far forward, etc etc. It was simply not comfortable for me for any distance. I had tried to build that up using parts from the previous Rapscallion baby bike build after I swapped frames on that project, but it was clearly an unsuccessful experiment. What to do…

FIX IT!

While Wee-Z dutifully ‘fixit-ed’ her Elmo hobby horse, I pulled the front end apart. Off came the wire basket (it’s rattly and irritating and off center, though functional.) Off came the ginormous Nitto Tecnomic stem that was required for the baby seat mounting. Off came the mustache bars, to be handed off to Lung in our usual cycle of passing parts back and forth, specifically these bars, which have been mounted on 55 bikes between us. Off came the brake lever and cabling.

Dream indeed! Well, anyway, this was the first time I needed to tension a Brooks Swallow, and I’m not sure why, other than it’s generally my oldest one. That made a world of difference. The saddle mounting position will change once the bike is done. I finally got the spare Nitto bulls on the old vintage stem from Wrongbike’s earliest incarnation as a beater Vista from the 70s. It had been attempted before, but was 1-2mm too large for the stem clamp. Finally got it up IN there. Now I wait for my usual elkhide and a finger-pull lever and we’ll see what’s what…

Carry on…

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CETMA is having a super sale on their popular front loader rack, same type Lung uses on his townie, but with a new clamp design at the bars. Great price, local business…

http://cetmacargo.com/CETMACargoRacks5r … dition.htm

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Well, I hesitated to post about it until today, but after about a week’s practice (and after about a year’s delay from when I started trying, thanks to that back injury) I can officially say I can skid stop when desired. Not that this precludes riding with a break-I-mean-brake, at least on my bikes.

I spent a few days trying to get the sequencing right on the foot positioning (9 and 3 o clock) which is surprisingly hard to do when you haven’t all your life. Then it was about focusing on the up pull on the weak leg while leaning, as that is all very alien to an experienced road rider. You don’t generally pull UP on a cleated pedal going forward, and you don’t generally lean over the front of the bars. Anyway, I started getting little hiccup hops. Step 1.

Then I had some rain, which helped immensely sort out the way you want the bike to behave in otherwise dry conditions. Same again on gravely/sandy patches of roadway, which used to be the enemy. I got a few 3" skids here and there, and a few days of extreme soreness from fatiguing all these muscles. Then it was 6" skids.

Last night and today I had a breakthrough that, hearing it in my head, sounds like the kind of thing Lung would have done (and probably DID do) that I would cluck at: I just started sending myself into stop signs and intersections, hands in the drops of the bulls, and forced myself to do or die. And lo, the skids got longer. HA.

I’m still not skidding for any great length, no more than about 2 feet I’d say, and I have a lot of hopping, because I’m too far back, so I’m actually getting very efficient skid hop skid hop actions that stop me pretty well… so now, ironically, I have to work on leaning farther so I can stop less efficiently, but more enjoyably.

The tipping point (so to speak) that warranted my post was that last night and today I was able to roll up to lights and skid rather than break. Nothing elaborate, just baby stuff. But stopped.

So, yay! Almost 39 years old. HA

Carry on.

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On Raposcallion, my baby/cargo carrier, I keep changing bars as I experiment with finding a sweet spot between the moon bar upright riding position and the pitched-forward fixed-gear position when the kid seat is removed. I tried shorty arc bars I had cut down for Wrongbike at one point, and the latest is Sparrow knock-offs twisted up sort of like risers. I’m finding a bar position that will be fun when the kid seat is gone, but also allow me more of a conventional riding position even when Zoe (or Matteo, eventually) is on there. So, anyway, an aside to all that: I keep pulling grips off. Kind of wasteful when you don’t have an air compressor around to blast the grip off from within. This is the only bike I have that uses actual grips, the others all being tape-wrapped.

So, I got it in my head to look for grips that were removable. Beyond the usual shop methods, of course. And so I eventually found my way to these: Speed Metal by Portland Design Group. They aren’t the only grips out there using compression bolts to hold into place, but they would match the eventual look of this bike aesthetically, so why not.

It’s a pretty cool system. The inner ring is actually the outermost layer, contoured for your thumb, and the outer tube, the grip itself, slides up under it.

Each end point is secured with a tiny allen (of different sizes, interestingly) and overall it feels quite secure. In my case it’s only half-successful because the grips are too long for the curve point of the bar. So the outermost edge and that clamp ring are really just hanging out. But I secured them with plugs I fashioned and we’ll see how it works out. I tried putting blinkies on the ends but it looked kind of awkward. I may return to that anyway, just because I like having an outboard blinker when kids are on-board.

Pretty cool product!

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as you may or may not remember/care, my physiological penchant for getting cramps on long rides is largely mitigated by staying good and hydrated with a halfWater/halfGatorate mix, and by taking SALT STICK CAPSULES at hourly intervals on the bike. the capsules are essentially salt, with a smattering of electrolytes and other vitamins in there. there are a number of different types of these supplements available at nearly every sporting goods store in the country, this just happened to be the one they had on hand when i visited the MASHSF storefront some time ago, so it’s the one i use.

keeping capsules in a jersey pocket is convenient, but it can get nasty. when you sweat on something that’s designed to dissolve, it gets sticky at best and it starts to completely break down at worst. so i’d had my eye on the SALT STICK MINI DISPENSER for quite some time, due to it’s handlebar end-plug design, which is meant to fit into road drops. (there’s also a full-sized version for straight bars or aero bars.)

so upon receipt, i began to install the dispensers on my most frequently-ridden steed, the MASH bolt build, and i IMMEDIATELY despised the way they looked. the big red bulbs at the ends just look SO out of place, and i don’t just mean because they’re red on a largely silver and black build. it’s their size and the degree to which they protrude from the ends of the bars that bothers me. it just looks … wrong.

this was a huge disappointment because i was really looking forward to the convenience of this product. but rather than just calling it a loss, i started thinking of other ways to use them. each one of the dispensers comes with a little clip which you can put on a belt or a pocket or something like that, and i realized that by using those with a strip of velcro belting, i could put them right on the stem, side-by-side, which is not only far more aesthetically pleasing to me (in other words, fly), it allows me to use the same two dispensers on all my bikes. my initial intent was to get a different set for each bike, so this was a huge sell because i don’t have to spend any more money. another benefit was that by not being permanently attached (in as "permanent" as any component is), i don’t have to have them on there day-to-day. they’ll only be mounted on long rides and i don’t have to worry about them on commutes or short hops where i won’t even be taking the capsules.

once i had that figured out, i loaded them up so that i could test the actual functionality. it’s quite a simple design, you just turn the knob counter-clockwise till you feel resistance, and then shove three capsules up IN there. to dispense, you turn the knob clockwise and a capsule crowns through the little bladder, from whence you liberate it, thusly…

i’m really thrilled about this product despite it’s simplicity and niche appeal, and i’m very much looking forward to testing it out this very saturday (weather permitting).

/// UPDATE \\\
on the primavera metric century this weekend, i was able to use these dispensers and found all the wins and losses inherent. don’t get me wrong, this is largely a winning product — it’s well thought-out and extremely easy-to-use. but there was one thing i noticed which could have been engineered a bit better. the clips which hold the dispensers don’t have a strong enough grip to override the force it takes to push a capsule through the bladder. that is to say that when you turn the dispenser, the entire unit turns before the pill comes out. this is nothing that isn’t easily remedied with some friction tape, however. on the road this weekend, i just held the dispenser in place while i turned the thing. easy enough to do, even at speed.

another thing i noticed wasn’t really a product failure, i think it was either user error or it was improper use. i had loaded the capsules in there such that when half of the pill came out and i grabbed it to pull it out completely, it came apart in half. if you think of how a capsule is made, you realize that one end goes over another. i had it loaded in there such that the end that goes over was facing in. so i basically pulled the inside half out of the outside half. i got around this issue later by just twisting the dispenser until the entire capsule came out, rather than pulling it once only half was out. in the future, i can further remedy this by taking care to load them facing the other way.

as to that last note, funny story — i pulled the half-capsule out and didn’t know what to do, so i held the half-cap in one hand, then pulled out the top half and REASSEMBLED IT AT SPEED. that’s gangsta.

8/10 CLANKS!

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For parents preparing to get their younglings on their bike for the first time, the immediate dilemma is the methodology: front seat, rear seat or trailer?
If you set aside the culture of fear associated with the placement of your beloved botlet on an inherently unstable apparatus in perilous motion, it becomes a combination of factors. What do you want to experience on the bike with them? What do you want them to experience?

I’ve had every iteration of the youngling carrier in the Team Lope shoppe, and I can tell you that while each have strengths and advantages, there was a clear winner in my family. Your choice will be subjective and personal. But I’ll break down what I’ve found. Remember, your youngling must have the neck strength to hold their head up even when jostled, and most importantly, you must be able to get the helmet on. We started with a Lazer helmet, which is the smallest available, and upgraded more recently to a Headcase helmet of her own selection. Pink.

Front Seat: I wanted to interact with my daughter on the bike, see what she saw, and talk with her as we rode, so I was hot for the front seat assembly. This was our second configuration, after using a rear seat first for a few months. The advantages of a front seat configuration are that you obviously have your youngling right up their with you, allowing you to interact and take data. For example, are they enjoying the ride, or is wind bothering them, or are they asleep, that sort of thing. My daughter cares not about the wind when on a bike, and generally narrates our voyage. She and I also regularly engage in surveillance assignments, such as watching for ravens or MINIs. Or girls. Speaking of girls, she rings the bell when we pass people. The weight is forward of the center of the bike, meaning you are pushing that high center of gravity mass around. It is the most stable position for a strong-bodied adult, as you are always gripping the bars, and less prone to the swing-out of the weight being on the back and getting away from you on a dismount. Care must always be used, of course. Disadvantages include the system being somewhat more difficult to manage for smaller, weaker individuals, and the fear factor: if you are convinced your child is going to be injured, it’s easy to imagine such things when you’re riding behind them on the bike.

For my money, the best front seat system is the Bobike, which offers a compact seat and footrest, compared to any other system I’ve seen that utilizes overbuilt plastic cages. Nothing wrong with that business, but when on a front rack that’s a lot more to have to look around while riding, and it’s more THERE there to be in the way between you and your youngling. I like to get face to face with mine.
You can get the Bobike from the only domestic supplier that I currently know of, Longleaf, who also have the Lazer helmet.
http://www.longleafbicycles.com/product … bike-mini/

They also have attachments like a windscreen or even offer a deluxe seat. Great folks, and highly recommended. I should point out that you need to consider your ride when using this seat. It attaches to the stem, so you need to have either a tall quill stem, or if using a modern stem, you need enough height in the steerer to accommodate the mounting assembly (sold separately for modern stems) and do some adjustment so you aren’t striking with your knees. For me, on a fixed-gear, that meant playing around with bar types and seat positions. I started on an upright Mixte frame and now am riding in a pretty conventional fixed-gear position on curved short touring bars that are like risers in the setup.

Another option is the Yepp seat, also quite popular.
http://publicbikes.com/p/Yepp-Mini-Chil … dium=email

Rear Seat: The rear seat is the most common around, and we inherited ours from another family. The seat rests on a modified rear rack, which connects to your seat tube ad clamps to the wheel stays. This is the traditional business, with the youngling in a large bucket, secured over the rear wheel. Advantages are that it’s perceived to be more stable for smaller, weaker riders, and the youngling is protected from wind by your own body in front of them. Disadvantages include visibility, for one, and in my opinion, contrary to the above, a tendency to introduce a twisting moment at rest. So, I guess easier for some in motion, harder when stopped. Anyway, these are everywhere, so I don’t even have links for you.

Trailer: I resisted this one for over a year, but now have one as well. A trailer attaches to your rear axle or stays and is on a pivot assembly so you have freedom to move the bike around without locking up the trailer. Your turning radius is thus quite tight, and depending on how deluxe your trailer is, the ride can be cush. We use the Burley Bee, which os pretty much a stripper. The reason I went with such a simple model was weight: in this configuration, you are pulling the weight behind the bike, and being pushed around a little bit by it as well. So, lightness to me was key. Additionally, for my use, it was for distance riding and hill climbing, giving me the capability to get something approximating my more aggressive rides in with my youngling along, so weight was absolutely the most important factor. More deluxe models increase the suspension, offer attachments to transform into a stroller, add a microwave, whatever. My youngling likes the trailer fine at first, but she prefers to be on the bike and involved. The trailer is a passive experience, and will generally lead to napping. So, in my mind, it’s somewhat more for your benefit and less about their experience. But great for long distances, many can carry two, like mine (planning ahead) and also great for inclement weather. Mine has a windscreen and a rain cover. A friend back east also pointed out they can be adapted for snow use in some cases as well. In my mind, the trailer is a good second option to one of the above that you might use more regularly.

http://www.burley.com/home/bur/page_306/bee.html

Note that your options expand considerably once your youngling is old enough to hold on for dear life, as you can introduce the ride-along extensions that offer a third wheel and second set of seat/bars, or upgrade to a larger kid carrier like a bikefiet or an Xtracycle. I’m entering that world soon and will be looking into those in more detail.

Anyway, have fun, and get those kids out there early. It’s a great way to commute with them, spend time with them, and get some junk miles in, so to speak.

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