Team Lope Tyre Clubbe » ye blacke death

Bike Build Process Log: Rapscallion – Live Load Test Ride

TRDL thom — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:34:54 +0000

So, if you’ve been following along, I made a baby and cargo carrier out of an old Mixte frame, and called it Ye Blacke Death. The combination of fixie riding and a small frame was hurting the knees every time I took the Wee Z out, so i decided to do something somewhat sensible and move to a more traditional frame in my size. Thus, YBD was retired and Rapscallion was born.

Over the weekend, I completed initial assembly of the Rapscallion prototype, using an Origin 8 El Pasado frame that was once Ghostal, much of the YBD pieces parts, and a Sugino Messenger crankset and bottom bracket. I found, along the way, that the fork clearance, using the beefy 35c tyres, didn’t allow for the fenders, so i moved the fenders over to Wrongbike’s rebuild, and proceeded. I was able to fit the Gamoh front rack on there, and eventually took it out for a test ride. One significant problem unsolved: the brake. The centerpulls I was working so hard to retain were conflicting too severely with the mounting assembly of the front rack’s center tange. On YBD, the layout was such that i could squeeze that tange up IN there, under the transverse cable of the brake, stringing the brake cable above it. But on Rapscallion the stack is compressed but the stem is long, so it didn’t work out. I pulled the centerpulls and added a side pull… I thought, you know what, self? It’s less old timey now so who cares. And so, wrongbike gets MORE old timey, and Rapscallion less. Frankly, with the modern track frame at it’s core, it makes sense.

Heres Rapscallion during the dead load test ride. I was cautious, not having a functional brake. See, the side-pull brake I put on there was short reach, so it didnt clear the brake calipers… I could have waited, put a longer reach brake on it, but I wanted to work with what I had. Those big tyres were juuuuuuust barely clearing both fore and aft, so I thought I’d try something new next. The important part was the fit was better, the ride much smoother (modern steel, even entry level, is so much smoother than 40-year old cheap stuff) and I managed to squeeze that crazy baby seat up onto a threadless steerer. The big questions were answered. Now, time to finesse it.

Here’s the bike on the second dead load test. I replaced the knobby in front with a trusty Soma Everwear (I always have one on hand, it seems) and dropping down to 23c from 35c? Huge difference, not only in clearance but friction, as you can imagine. Since I don’t do much off-roading for fear of losing my precious cargo, I didn’t mind the loss. I loved the look of those knobbies on YBD, but on the track frame it looked uncomfortably too FGFS for my tastes.
I restrung the brake a bit (more on this to come as I test a new theory later) and took it up the hill. By Jove, I could accelerate, climb (a bit) and stop! Yay! Note the deer in the background, judging the lack of new paint.

On the 4th of July, we went into San Anselmo for a little Q and Giants action, equally apportioned before and after pool time. I brought Rapscallion in order to do my first Live Load test.

One nice thing about the frame change, the bike easily fits in the bike rack now without special padding, as the fenders are off and the tyres are smaller.

In order to prepare for the test, we needed to properly affix the first sticker to Wee Z’s new helmet. My bebe upgraded to a larger size. Oh time flies. Of course, it was a Team Lope sticker.

The Live Load test: We were ready for action, despite me leaving both my SHOES and the little foot strap thingies for her seat, back at the house. Sleepy Hollow is pretty mellow so I was willing to risk destroying my arches. By the cried of ‘bike-sickle!!!!’ Zoe was good to go with the revised design just fine, though she seemed incredulous that I hadn’t mounted the bell yet.

It went well. Smooth ride, lighter than the last build, and easier to move around too, since I changed chainrings. I was using a road bike chainring on YBD and had fitted a fat 20 tooth cog in back. Now, I was using a 46 tooth chainring, so I went down from 70.7 to 61.4. It’s now by far my smallest inchgear fixie, but let me tole you what: carry a 25 pound kid AND groceries in front of you? The loading is hard to push around, so I’m down.

We rode all the way up to my wifebot’s old school, San Domenico, and back, stopping to admire an old timey car that sparked my daughter’s interest. Overall, a great test ride and a fun way to spend the holiday.

Thoughts:

-no getting around it, baby seat and cargo rack in front, even without cargo, is a heavy load for a fixed gear. At some point she’s going to get too heavy and I’ll have to transition to a rear rack.

-the new frame geometry helped my knees quite a bit. Not PERFECT mind you but much better. The frame is sized for me at least. The problem remains that you are riding very upright which messes up your triangle of powah. It’s a weird feeling, even on my old townie bike Redcoat. Anyway, I may experiment with changing to bars that, while still clearing the baby seat, are a little less upright and far back from the stem. I think I can get a little bit better riding posture that way.

-I’m striking the underside of the seat just a hair. Not enough to be a problem for ME thus far, but Wee Z snuck her hand back there and got it pinched between the seat and my massively powerful thigh, so I need to experiment there. I’m playing around with ways to get the seat even higher. Will advise.

All in all, a ton of successes, and very close to calling it a done deal and proceeding with repaint. More as it happens…

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Bike Build Process Log- Rapscallion: Minding the Gap

TRDL thom — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:59:11 +0000

Rest in piece

So I’ve been remiss in reporting on this, but I’ve been doing major surgery to Ye Blacke Death, my funky baby porter slash cargo bike. It was a great build, comprised of an old Mixte frame powdercoated matte black, with lots of old and new stock, a frankendrivetrain, custom chunky wheels by Joe’s shop, 718c in Brooklyn, custom handmade wood fenders, a front portage rack, and a Bobike stem-mounted baby seat. The only problem: the same thing that plagued the original owner of this frame, it’s a little too small. So, add to that the upright riding position for a baby carrier, and the fixed gear drivetrain? My knees were feeling it. I can’t afford that, not just for those rides, but all my other riding. So, I was forced to retire Ye Blacke Death.

RIP Ye Blacke Death. Long live Rapscallion*!

So the new project involves converting a modern track frame into my new baby carrier. I had an Origin8 El Pasado available, which was once Ghostal’s frame. I initially wanted to use it as a test model just to see if I could make the angles work (the bobike baby seat requires a tall stem in order to give you knee clearance, so the riding position is important, the size of the frame, the stem height, etc) and discovered, at least it seems so anyway, that I could make it work, with a seat adapter and some other changes. So, based on that initial test, I decided to continue with the Ghostal frame, build a rideable prototype, and if THAT stands the test of a field expedition, then I could get it repainted and boom.

So today’s report id all about the gap. Specifically fork clearance.

Here’s an example of the great fork clearance of older ten speed frames designed to use centerpull caliper brakes. Spacious! I didn’t even KNOW how good I had it. This is a shot of Wrongbike’s fork but if you look at that pic of Ye Blacke Death up top, you’ll see that I shoehorned a fender, a portage rack, centerpulls AND 38c knobby tyres. There’s a whole thread on that tangle elsewhere. Suffice to say, I’m glad I tested the wheels on the new frame because…

Yep. That’s a tight gap. The El Pasado frame was and is awesome for many reasons, not the least of which being the very versatility that allows for this project, so unusual in an entry level track bike frame. Not only does it have all the braze-ons and eyelets for racks and such, but the fork is wide enough to accommodate big commuter tyres. However, check that gap: it’s like 2mm-3mm. So, this means a change in vision: I had planned to bring everything over from YBD onto this build, but those fenders aren’t happening. That’s OK though, because Wrongbike’s rebuild (and eventually a new name will be required) is veering more old timey than it has been in recent years, and it will take those fenders just fine.

So, basically at this point Wrongbike, Ye Blacke Death and Ghostal are all blown apart and Ye Olde Shoppe looks like a bomb hit it. For now!

*As you may have noticed, I name my bike builds after old-timey villains. Villain, Crook, Redcoat, Carpetbagger, etc. The name Rapscallion is a good one for my baby carrier: evil in one definition, but playfully mischievous in another. Appropriate for a toddler delivery system. Of course, my wifebot certainly never appreciated the baby bike being called Ye Blacke Death. Heh.

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Bike Build Process Log- Carpetbagger: Dinged and Spindled

TRDL thom — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:50:28 +0000

At the time these photographs were taken, I built up Carpetbagger, the Coupled travel bike, almost entirely over the course of an evening, stopping as seen above, with only a steerer tube cut, brake stringing and chain away from ride-out.

When I went to install the headset, I had some trouble because the home-brew headset cup press I made was mere centimeters too short. It drove me nuts trying to finagle it, so I eventually put it down and took it in to Tam Bikes, where MASH’s Dylan pressed them for me quick-snap. Actually, he admitted there was some difficulty with them, but he got it up IN there.

Back home, I dropped the bottom bracket in that night and built up the bike as you see it above. A note about that: I’m using a Sugino 75 kit that rode to LA as part of Team Hype’s Magnus’ Cinelli X MASH build. He kept it in pretty good shape, so I took it off his hands when he was liquidating before leaving for Japan, at the same time Team Lope pal Ryan was grabbing his frame. The Sugino 75 cranks can use a conventional sealed BB but he had a nice 75-stamped cup and cone and I took that too. Unlike the cup and cone BB’s I restored on Wrongbike and Ye Blacke Death, this wasn’t thirty or forty years old. I won’t say the others weren’t smooth, but this was like butter. The crankset and BB are noticeably lighter than the Messengers I used on several other bikes. I’d love to compare them to my Dura Ace cranks on Villain. Frankly, the specs are out there. But as someone who counts pizzas, not grams, it’s unusual for me to worry about weight on a build. But since Carpetbagger is intended to be a travel bike, I wanted it light, and so the rims and the cranks, my two heavier components usually, are much lighter here.

Side note: when I was up on the deck trying not to lose headset parts or let my daughter get all greeeeeazzy with her probing digits, I noticed some damage to the frame. Now, I will admit that at one point she waltzed over and drop kicked it onto the BBQ. But I think that accounts for a to-steel scratch on the seat tube. However, there’s a dent in the top tube and another lower on the seat tube, both under paint. Frankly, I think my pwdercoater isn’t very gentle. Remember, same crew that warped Wrongbike’s forks until they were about 14mm too narrow!
But forewarned is forearmed.

Again, another unfortunate defect: a powdercoating fail on the head tube! Fortunately, the scratch on the seat tube and the fail onthe head tube would ultimately be covered by custom vinyl, and the dents? Well, realistically, this is all just new-build glamor consideration. Once the bike is packed and shipped a few times, I’ll be amazed it there’s any paint LEFT on it. Travel bikes don’t stay pretty for long, even protected by tube insulation.

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Ye Blacke Death: Working With a Front Rack

TRDL thom — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:30:28 +0000

I love my front rack on the YBD cargo/Zoe carrier. The side rails that create the basket shape (which actually contain the wood floor boards, AND provide a bottle opener) work really well for most things, especially grocery bags, because I can cinch them down and then the bag is restrained from slowly vibrating over by that basket rail. But sometimes I have to sort out very large packages to take to the post office, and I have to get creative. I can strap larger ones on top of the rails and it’s basically the same as the flat surface of the CETMA system, but then I have to find ways of securing small stuff under them. The rails of this rack aren’t a mesh so there’s amble space for things to slide out if given the chance, such as otherwise netted up kid’s jackets, sunglasses, what not. Sometimes I think the rack could have done with a rail that had more frequent vertical supports for that purpose. But overall, I tend to get comments when out and about, from other people amazed that I can pile boxes as high as my eyes (or higher, if I wanted the deaths) and string the netting together to hold them down.

NO accessory on a bike I’ve built has been as functionally useful as a front rack.

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Will it Spill?

TRDL thom — Fri, 06 May 2011 21:48:23 +0000

I know you, upon seeing all my pics of my cargo/baby bike Ye Blacke Death, have wondered if it would be possible to transport two coffees in that front rack. My duty to you, dear reader, was to perform the experiment. For, you know, SCIENCE.

Cargo net across the mid section, coffees secured in a tray, though the tray is loose in the cargo rack area, and then coffees are inserted through holes in the net.

I’m happy to report that despite the Northern California uneven road conditions, of which we are occasionally helpfully warned about by third parties, due to my judicious balancing, top body not moving and rhythmicity doing, the coffees… were still… standing!

Check that one off the list.

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Review: Saris Thelma 3 Rear Bike Rack

TRDL thom — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:47:52 +0000

What: The Saris Thelma 3 – Rear hitch bike rack system

Why: I needed to acquire a bike rack for the new MINI*, and had a few objectives over previous racks, including weight, 3-bike capacity and modular design.

The Saris always caught my eye the entire three times I’ve seen one in the wild, because of its unique clamshell design. The bar itself is a C-shape that connects at the center to a swivel arm and receiver tongue. Thatswhatshesaid! Anyway, on this frame, the clamshells themselves are plastic with steel inserts. One bites the front wheel, the other cinches to the rear. Easy cheesy. I bought it because it looked to be lighter than other racks, the clamshell design would allow for use with the Mixte frame bike (if my experiment worked) and the modular design allowed it to expand as needed over time.

How’d It Do:

First of all,t he rack IS light. It’s about half the weight of the all steel Thule that I sold off, and heavier than the previous two-bike platform type model I used ont he last MINI. This is very handy.

The construction appears solid. In my case, I bought from an e-tailer that looks to have boxed up a display model, because the rack was beat to hell in transit, many of the plastic components gouged or scuffed, and some broken and missing parts too. Saris offers lifetime warranty on their gear, and quickly replaced the missing and broken parts via Fed-Ex (even faster than the vendor was able to do) and the rast of the damage is superficial. If you’ve used a bike rack, you know they wear pretty quickly, between sun and scrapery. So no big deal. And I got it for about $250, a hundred off of retail.

The design is modular, so while this is one of the only 3-bike capacity racks on the market (I wanted to stay away from 4-bike racks, being 2" receiver size, and wanted more than 2-bikes for when Z has a bike to carry.) you can set it up, as I have done, with only two of the three placements. I set them up at far ends so there is space between them to allow the cargo bike extra clearance.

This yellow tab locks the clamshell in front into a clamped position, which is in addition to the straps. It’s very solid, yet a thumb-push away from release.

The receiver tongue is on a swivel mount that is held by a single cotter pin that is strung to the rack itself so you don’t lose it. very smooth operation.

The rack installed easily. Well, I should say, it took a long time to put together, between waiting for the replacement parts, and assembling it up on the deck, but that’s because you have to get it nice and tight in order to hold together, pretty much inevitable with an assembly-required rack. Lots of muscle went into the assembly of the thing, but hey.

In the up position, you can see it’s extremely shallow. Especially against the flat vertical surface of the MINI Clubman’s barn doors. You could park pretty tight with this on, and hardly be affected. In the up position, you extend the front clamshell 180 degrees and cinch it to the rear shell with straps. Smart design! Note also the red reflectors built into the rack’s C-section.

Here it is in the down position. I’ve put one bike on, my Cinelli X MASH fixed-gear Crook Type 3. Note how the clam tucks in there just so. It’s very snug, yet the clamshell pieces are wide enough in their arc section to accommodate knobby tyres. The rack’s C-section is fairly long, so no judicious parallel parking here. You can see I left one modular rack placement off, in the middle, which would orient the middle bike in the opposite direction.

My experiment involved Ye Blacke Death, my cargo bike. The build includes wood fenders and knobby tyres. To be clear: Saris does not support the use of fender bikes. But I thought I could make it work. What I ended up doing is taking advantage of this particular fender design to work for me: I loosened the bolts that hold the fender in place on those side support rods, so it could push down against the tyre and create a solid mass. This allows it to tuck up into the clamshell just so. I used some dense packing foam to protect the wood from the clamshell’s plastic surface and minimize chafing from road vibration, though I suspect some damage will be inevitable. I was mostly concerned about stability. I used a double-length of strap to get around the wheel and clamshell, cinched it all down, and then pulled hard. It stayed in place. Excellent! Your mileage may vary, and I may lose YBD on the freeway sometime in the future, but it APPEARS solid enough.

View from the front. That’s with the cargo bike on the outer position and the Cinelli in the rear. There’s actually enough clearance to have the heavier cargo bike on the inside position too.

Another shot, side-view, showing the clearance. Very nice.

So, any cons? Well, I think probably the box could have been better packed, though I have no way of knowing if that was the vendor or the manufacturer. Saris tells me their packages are well padded. The only other issue I see is that I think they sized their receiver tongue a few millimeters too small. It allows the rack to rock a bit in the receiver hitch. Now, all racks rock to some degree, and when they don’t, they’re impossible to slide in and out, especially if heavy. But this will rock enough that it will introduce a lot of exaggerated moments on the far end of the cantlever, ie. the last bike on the rack. So I will next work up a shim that will hold it a little more snug in the hitch.

So far so good!
Stay tuned for a follow-up, discussing a related mod…

*No small irony, when I sold my Thule 4-bike hanger-type hitch rack last week, the buyer gleefully discovered it was, in reality, a 1 1/4" hitch after all, which stumped me to no end, as the hitch I bought for the Element was specifically listed as a 2". Which means that when I bought the Thule, used, IT TOO was listed as 2", but I installed it, found it to work, and never thought twice because I never had anything to compare it to. So my customer was excited that he could use it on his car, and I was a bit stymied that I hadn’t needed to buy a new rack after all.

*Granted, Ye Blacke Death, my toddler cargo bike, uses a Mixte frame and can’t hang by the top tube it doesn’t have, which would have been a problem with that other rack. They sell a top tube surrogate that clamps to seat tube and head tube for this purpose, but between gravity and road vibration, it would undoubtedly grind the frame to bare metal in time. So no loss.

Update:

on the Clubman, the unique way the SARIS pivots on an elevated joint from the hitch level means that it’s the first rack i’ve found that didn’t allow the Clubman doors to open, even when folded flat. Now, that said, I use the SARIS for other reasons that outweigh this, but it’s something I didn’t consider until I mounted the rack. I’m not sure how this would affect the Countryman… on the Club the doors would strike that elevated joint just a few inches from their near corners.

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Frueh Uebt Sich.. Was Ein Meister Werden Will

TRDL thom — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:07:11 +0000

This shot was taken over the weekend on one of my jaunts around the hood with Wee Z. I try and get out there on Ye Blacke Death with her whenever the weather permits. She LOVES rides. If she sees one of my bikes, I don’t care what time it is she points and squeals: "BIKE! bi-ksell! UP!"
and if we don’t immediately head out for a ride (again, it could be a torrential rainstorm) she throws a fit. So you see I’ve trained her well in what matters.

Anyway, my mother-in-law saw this pic and responded with the title of this post. It translates in Swiss approximately to: One must train young in order to become a champion.

That’s sort of my life’s mantra already. HA!

Viva Z Ridery!

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Interview 2: Wrongrobot

TRDL thom — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:28:47 +0000

Following up on Ironlung’s take on the MASH BLOG with chas, here’s my answers, same. Because I KNOW you were holding your breath…

~~~

what do you ride? (can be your stable or just one bike)
+ I’m enjoying the embarrassment of riches out here in Mill Valley of having enough room int he shop to have several bikes on hand, for science. When we were moving out of the loft in SF, we almost took a condo in Larkspur that had NO bike storage at all. I was going to be down to two bikes: one at the office, one at home somehow, and roate them out on legs of the commute. But as it turned out, I got a bike shop space as large as the house, almost, so I have hooks up and bikes hanging thereon, and even hoteling station hooks for my man Lung.
+ 01 Wrongbike: a fixed, converted 70s Vista, now yellow/orange wrongrobot color, with arc bars and gumwalls.
+ 02 Crook Type 3: a green/white 2010 Cinelli x MASH frame build-up based on the gray version that I rode Aids Lifecycle on, but now with bullhorns
+ 03 Villain: my first all-in road bike build based on a LOOK KG381 Team from the 2003 Tour de France, currently employing SRAM Rival components for the most part.
+ 04 Ye Blacke Death: an old late 60s Mixte frame now converted to a fixed cargo bike, with moon bars, wood fenders, knobby tyres, a front cargo rack and a front seat for my daughter, Wee Z.
+05 Ghostal: a new-parts build fixie based on an Origin 8 frameset, done in all white with chrome, for science. Not for death. This one is being stripped back down and partially sold.
The rest have either been gifted to friends, or are in use by others, or have been stripped for sale. See, I’m condensing!

how long have you been riding and what started you?
I rode a kids bike as a kid, but no romantic tale of me hurtling along with streamers and a #3 emblazoned on my glitter-tee or anything. In Junior High I started riding a KHS mountain bike around town for the same reasons Lung described: getting outta dodge. That was stolen in early High School, and I upped to my first road bike, a heavy as lead Nishiki which I learned to ride properly for distance despite it’s entry-level, again heavy as LEAD nature. I rode my first event rides on it, my first two day ride, and so on. I mashed the HELL out of that thing, so much so that on a climb in one of the event rides, I bent the teeth on the big chainring. Tells you both the quality of the steel used on that component, and the wrongness involved: I was big gear mashing to catch someone up a hill, which today i would have more sense that to do (assuming I had ANY gear choices at hand)… That guy expired and was abandoned when my parents moved, but I was in college at that point, riding a mountain bike, as it was windy and hilly and I was more interested in off road hurtling and alcohol consuming than distance endurance efforts. I upgraded to a much better, aluminum mountain bike when I first moved to SF, but after a few years, while I DID enjoy the shock absorption and relative hardiness while plowing through all the glass and shrapnel on Oak street, I longed for the road bike days of my youth. I bought a 2000 Bianchi Veloce, my first real road bike of relative quality (still consumer level, but with better components and racing geometry) and rode that through all the events and years of commuting before selling it to my man Lung after I had upgraded to my first pro-grade Look. From there, it got out of hand, as events conspired to force me to re-evaluate the one bike for all rides mentality, and Lung taught me to wrench.

do you wear a helmet and why or why not?
Absolutely. I ride all my ‘real rides’ with a helmet, as I do my commutes. I also admit I irrationally forego it on short jaunts to coffee while at work, or similar, but there’s no logic to that. I don’t believe helmets make you a safer rider. But I do believe they protect you THAT MUCH MORE, so why not, right. Definitely has proven a life-saver for me at least three times in my life where I’ve seen the split helmet foam.

favorite shop? why?
Too many, too many. Like Lung, it’s my own bike basement. But also locally, it’s Tam Bikes. I like the pedigree and eccentric selection at Bike Odyssey, but I know the guys at Tam Bikes, so. In SF, I prefer American (fixed side)…

clip or clipless?
I rode, at one point, SPD and Speedplay and Look clips… but now I condensed to all SPD to give me the most flexibility, even though it’s my least favorite system. Some of my townie fixies have half-and-half pedals, SPD on one side, platform on the other.

ride with headphones?
exclusively.

sponsors or teams/gangs/clubs you are a part of?
http://www.teamlopetyreclubbe.com is our life’s blood, ride crew wise. Team Lope started as Jeff Muadib Marks and I, in event rides and centuries we would do together. Then Lung got in on it and it evolved from just being the name used on group road rides, and became a way of life, seriously. Build it yourself, modernize it, give it a new use, funkify it, avoid style rules, push your limits and have fun riding. And anyone in the Bay Area that wants to ride with us, let it be known and come along. In 2011 we’ll be posting notice of our planned rides so you can hop aboard appropriately. We have some local riders who’ve expressed interest in joining us on the road, and we love it. Almost as much as we love taking climbs with roadies who stare at us. Heh.

fav. race?
I’ve never raced. I’ve always pursued my personal best, of course. Every commute ride is a time trial, every road ride where there’s a rider somewhere up ahead means I’m in 2nd place and need to catch them. But overall, never done crits or anything. I enjoy watching professional road racing, though the politics, business and scandal of the sport hurts the vibe. Tole you what though, if we had a velodrome, I’d give it a go.

fav. place to ride or route(s) in SF ?
Tough one, same. I really enjoyed my commute because it was all water’s edge, had climbs, and was beautiful, both in scenery and people-watching, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. My favorite city riding memories are the weekend morning noodles with Lung, takin it ‘teazy, having a cup of coffee, doing dorky bike errands. My favorite roads to ride, anywhere, though are where the trees overhang on either side and create long arched vaults of dappled lighting, and you have some undulation in the road. Good stuff.

fav. person(s) to ride with?
i prefer to ride alone, but of course my boy Lung.
As I’ve gotten older, and family life has taken a stronger grip on my social time AND free time, I’ve especially looked forward to group rides as a way to get the band back together in the first place.

dope chill spot?
Coffee shop! But only at the beginning of a real long ride, not in the middle. I’m looking at you Eric.

why SF (lung edit : you can put your own city, but just specify it)?
I love SF. Other cities I’ve enjoyed riding were Paris, Seattle, Dusseldorf.

what do you do for work?
Architect by day, comic artist by night [ http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com ]

best and worst thing(s) about riding in SF?
Honestly, it’s not SF specific but cultural: I love riding where I live, where there are a great number of diverse riders on the road, lots of choices of route, lots of funky rides to be inspired by, and enough of a rider presence to give us some leverage politically in local legislative issues. On the other hand, the sword cuts both ways: I strongly dislike riders with elitist attitudes, riders who ride 3 wide and block traffic, riders who ride so unpredictably that car drivers grow angry, and trouble makers who happen to be on bike. All these come with the territory when you are in a bike city. And regardless of what Portlandia posits, cities like ours may have a plethora of tall bikes and fixies and fun bikery going on, but we’re still at the mercy of aggressive drivers, and that’s always the biggest dampener on my riding pleasure. So any ride that goes off without conflict is a treat! I aim for those!

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Ye Blacke Death: Tekkit Teasy

TRDL thom — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:08:41 +0000

never has carrying mass quantities of craiglisted bike parts to the shipper been such a mellllllow journey.

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Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Natural Twenty

TRDL thom — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:34:48 +0000

Show me a [Self-Generated] problem
yo I’ll solve it

Here we have the big 20 tooth cog on there finally (well, again) thanks to a fresh chain, and after an admittedly unloaded ride test (that means different things, depending on where, and when, in the Team Lope enterprise, we’re talking) and yes, it is reassuring to have the 70.7 inchgear as intended.

Wish I was well enough to actually ride as planed today, but these are still the problems to have…

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