So the Primavera Century is coming up this weekend, and Lung and I are doing it fixed. At first, I was gung-ho without much attention tot he details only because:
a) we ride fixed everywhere, frequently climbing
2) we rode to LA without an issue
d) fackit

But I started thinking about the last few times I did this event… the Calaveras Road section has ‘the wall’ which is just one of three big climbs of the day… I remember this being an issue for many of the road riders, let alone a couple of dorks on fixies. I got through it, and the other climbs, using my usual double-ring road bike config, but in thinking about muscling up those on a fixed gear, three details emerged:
a) it’s one thing to muscle up a climb, as we often do. It’s another thing to blow that much anaerobic resource on a long day of riding, headwinds and heat and other climbs to follow
2) I recently upgeared to 76*
d) ohfack

Additionally, I haven’t overhauled Crook Type 3 pretty much since I built it up after ALC… and that’s far too long. I rotate through bikes (at one point, 8 of them) in my commute, so the more rigorous overhaul isn’t as necessary for me or as frequent anyway as it is for Lung, riding the same bike every day with few exceptions. And I’ve done several maintenance and corrections evenings, spot-overhauling parts of it. But the creaks int he bottom bracket were joined by some ping-pings recently, and my brake pads were stubs. So it was time to do it up.

I didn’t COMPLETELY overhaul it in the sense that I didn’t break it down to it’s complete extrusion photo level of strippage, but I did the primary stuff: complete drivetrain overhaul, brakes, all bolts and major adjustments. All I didn’t do is pull the 17 off, as I recently put it on, and I didn’t break down the headset.

I’m now whisper silent. I mean, I still have the minor chatter of chainline issues, but the bike itself is a ninja again (a green and white and elkhide and chainline-chattering ninja)… it hasn’t been this quiet since I built it. So smooth. And it’s of course all thanks to judicious applications of my best pal in the shop:

Ole Phil never lets me down…

As far as the Primavera goes, what I ended up electing to do is keep the 76 on the one side, and add a 19 cog on the other, which gets me to around 67. So the total rig is not as nimble as Lung’s 72/03 (or whatever that 21 gets him) but at least we both have a climbing gear to fall back on as needed, one way or another.

I rode the hills by my house a few times on the new cog to get cinched, per the usual routine, and rode in on it, which was sort of torturous, not unlike trying to spend much high-cadence saddle time on Rapscallion with it’s 20 cog (baby bikery) but I really wanted to give it some time to settle in. I will say it’s nimble to climb with it.

Excelsior!
*I’ve been saying it was 77 but I checked and it actually rounds to 76, my bad. 48/17

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So the fun thing about Rapscallion, my toddler toting cargo fixie, is that I can transform it into a pretty reasonable flyer in a very short period of time. I realized I never posted what that was about, so here we are.

The Gomoh front rack is secured by two bolts in the base of the rack, attaching to a mount that runs behind the brake calipers, and then two bolts that secure it to the forks down by the wheel. Pop, pop, pop and pop. It’s off. Mounting bracket remains. You could put a rusty auger bit on this if you wanted to scare any cyclist-mauling ambulances.

The baby seat is held onto a mounting plate by two long pegs that are further secured by a cotter pin. I leave the mount on, and remove the seat quick-snap. The mounting plate is of a spacer type so it sits on the steerer. I considered quickly removing it too, the first time I did this, but was lazy about it. Now, I look at the plate as a forgiving object when smashed into, compared to the isolated spacer stack on the tall steerer when it’s absent, if one were to, oh, I don’t know, skid like a silly fool.

It’s not glamorous, but man it feels light. Partly this is because of contextual awareness: I’m so used to this thing having 20 pounds of rack and 30 pounds of daughter on the front wheel. So freed from that, it zips. Frankly, the one complaint I have is that it’s not fast enough, because it has a 20 cog on there, designed for that normal loading.

So one of the main reasons I took this bike out this way yesterday was that it was raining, and this doubles as my rain bike. But also, I wanted to see if I could start expanding my skidding beyond the comfort zone of the bulls on Crook. I’m happy to report a few observations:

- I can skid off risers, though not as easily yet as bulls. Though, when I put my mind to it, I found it pretty easy to get forward.
- I can skid on SOMA Everwears MUCH easier than my bulletproof Gatorskins. This stands to reason, as the gators are textured and grippy, and the Everwears are softer rubber, and well regarded for skidding anyway. But my first time comparing, so wow.
- The unwinding bottom bracket cup has not renewed it’s pernicious unwinding since I took it home and got up IN there. We’ll see.

Anyway, transformations! And yes, in Stay Limber Mode, this is called RapscalLean.

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The other mysterious mystery in my Shoppe is the mysteriously unwinding Bottom Bracket Cup, comma, Left Side. No one can offer a reason for it happening. Krys at 718 suspected italian threading but no, it’s conventional Sugino on Origin 8 so typical normal right-hand threading. I checked the threads on the cup and the B and they look pristine.

So, next step, I retightened it and we’ll see if happens again. If it does: Loc-Tite.

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On our recent ride, Lung noted that the bottom bracket cup on my non-drive side of Rapscallion was unthreading. How the hell does THAT happen.

Fortunately, once again our team protocol of bringing all necessary tools to overhaul a bike, on a ride of any length, came in useful.

However, by the time I rode another 3 miles or so, the cup was loosening again.
I can’t fathom what forces would be at work to allow this standard-direction threaded cup to unwind. the crank arm and the sealed-bearing cartridge bb aren’t in contact with it such that the pedal force would screw it. That’s the whole effing point.

It remains a mystery. Shimano. If anyone has ideas, hit me up.

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typically when WR and i go out for a ride, it’s in marin because in addition to affording us long, looping miles, it’s more convenient to his hectic family schedule. but yesterday we had the rare (sole, in fact) opportunity to take a ride here in the city thanks to his wifebot(tm)’s schedule including a baby shower. she took their son with her and he brought zoe with him and the three of us did a slow, noodley little run from fort point down to the wave organ.

our starting point was the southernmost red dot on that map, and the point where we split off at the end of our day was the "X." arrows indicate direction.

the day started with their family having pancakes and me having a hangover at the iHop, where i gave zoe a gift i’d picked up (unkablair has started the practice of bringing gifts to her every time i see her, which is going to prove interesting in her selfish years and expensive in her teen years). we all hung out and caught up and then WR and zoe and i headed out. our first stop was fort point, the northwest red dot.

FORT POINT was completed just before the american civil war, to defend san francisco bay against hostile warships, and is now a united states national historic site administered by the national park service. it’s a wonderful, spot just under the GGB, and has many old cannons on display, along with some rooms that are done up with mannequins and furniture to represent what life at the fort would have been like.

we wandered around there for a while and went up on to the roof where zoe fell down and bounced off a giant concrete cannon mount, cried for 3 minutes, and then went right back to climbing all around like a spider monkey.

from here, we went to get some hot chocolate for her (and me), and sat for a while just BS’ing.

zoe drank her hot chocolate with a spoon, turning the front of her jacket into a murder scene, and i popped open my ankle brace and let it rest a while. afterwards, we headed east, and ended up at the wave organ.

THE WAVE ORGAN is a quirky and wonderful little installation on a spit of land out past the SF yacht club. it’s an acoustic sculpture, and at a number of listening portals on the site which are connected to tubes that go out into the water, people can hear the sounds of the bay. it’s more active at high tide and we were there at low tide, so there was next to nothing to hear, but it was still great to be there.

zoe was completely conked out at this point and as we were headed out, i noticed a crazy mechanical issue with WR’s drivetrain — his left bottom bracket cup had come almost completely unthreaded. i first started tinkering on bicycles when i was about 10 years old and i have NEVER seen this. so with zoe sleeping soundly (and seemingly uncomfortably), i stabilized his bike and he set to work with some of my tools to remedy the issue.

from here we headed back to the marina green, where we parted ways, as his wifebot(tm) was on her way back to pick he and their little grrl up to return home.

it was a kind of touristy day and i bet we didn’t even cover 3 miles all told, but it was as wonderful as any other ride we get to take. it’s interesting being the kind of cyclists who ride for the pure joy of it. we can smash out 60 fixed miles in the headlands or noodle for 3 miles between sights and each ride is just as fun. zoe makes it more fun cause she’s still exploring and learning and being a funny and smart kid, but you get my point — there’s no such thing as junk miles.

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Ah, the joys of breaking in a skid-stop capable fixed-gear bike… and fixed-gear capable organic engines.

Low: on Friday night, after doing some longer skids down my hill approaching my house from an alternate route, I felt slippage. Guh. I thought I had that stuff wrenched down, but of course these are new forces compared to backpedaling, so. This was expected. I took the wheel off, added Phil’s, cinched down the cog carrier and lockring, and was back in action.

High: On Tuesday, I began systematically trying to train myself for ambidextrous skidding, after that first attempt almost led me into the maws of Ole Coal Hi’sself. By the time I got to work, I had managed two reasonable ones (maybe 4") in gravely flotsam, and about 5 smaller ones on dry ground. It feels ridiculously alien, compared to the left leg forward on which I’ve been practicing normally.

Low: I’m starting to feel splints in my forearm tendons from gripping the drops and keeping my body as forward as possible.

High: On Wednesday, I had another 5 successful dry ground mini skids using the alternate right lef forward… still very alien, very hard to get my brain in gear. But baby steps. Lung waited a long time to go ambidextrous while in the meantime powersliding down whole city blocks with his dominant leg, so I thought I’d try and get ambidextrous from the get go if possible.

Low: Wednesday evening, I was stuck at the office late, and by the time I got off the horn, I was in hot water at home. I raced out the door, hit the light on my helmet, and shot down the street. It was some way down a little hill I descend that I realized I left my toolkit at the office. And my U-lock. Oh well, too late to turn back.

I skidded a few stop signs. On the third, I felt my leg drop and my cranks were spinning. I assumed I had some sort of crank or bottom bracket deaths, but when I pulled over to inspect, it was the other direction.

Scheiise! The lock ring had spun off and was dangling on the axle. The cog carrier (remember, I use these Sugino Keirin cogs) was about half way unthreaded, and the cog itself was off the carrier (nothing holds it on) and also rolling on the axle, still chained. I consider myself lucky: I knew at some point I’d probably unwind the cog, but when matters of drivetrain fail occur on a fixed-gear bike, if they didn’t send a chain to tangle the crank arm or simply send me to meet Ole Coal Hi’sself, I count myself in the win column. However, OF COURSE. No tools. And no U-lock means no Monkey socket end.

I spent about 10 minutes or so fiddling with it with my gloved fingers and managed to reseat the cog, re-spin the carrier a bit, and roll the lockring, despite threading problems. A few good pulls on the cranks got the carrier into place, re-hand-tightened the lockring, and then I just noodled home. I mean, I rode fast and hard and jumped on the cranks quite a bit to get that carrier cinched, but the real concern was the lockring rolling back off and then dropping the cog. It’s also really hard to ride without backpedaling. Not just not skidding. No counterpedaling to slow.

This morning, in Ye Shoppe, I examined the wheel off the frame, and saw that while the end of the hub had thread damage, and I saw some wear on the lockring, I was able to pull off the thread threads (You know what I mean, you can see one below) and then tighten everything down again. So, off I went.

High: Made it to work, including climbing Loring and doing a number of skids down the back side, without incident and the lockring doesn’t appear to have budged. I think from now on I’ll be checking this before each ride, though.

Tonight, more ambi skidding.

One more note: I checked my tyre again and since last check you can definitely see the difference, and by extension, the increase in my skid successes and confidence. Last time I saw no change to the tyre, and this time, I have three solid patches of wear. In fact, since I’ve been roll-stopping, or, you know, skid-hop-skid-hopping since I can’t seem to stay forward long enough to maintain the skid for more than at most 3 feet or so, the third patch is like a third of the wheel’s surface length. Ha. So I have two small contact skid patches and one looooooong one. Which also tells me that I need to consider a new ratio. Three skid patches is the worst possible. And while I won’t be skidding through expensive Gatorskins next time, Ineed more surface area. So, I suspect I’ll drop to a 17 cog, which will get me to 17 skid patches, though I’ll be back up to 75+ inchgear, which will make climbing again more onerous.

Final High: That 3′+ skid limit I mentioned? This morning, final skid before the front door skid (which my boss has noticed the marks on the sidewalk and given it the old WTF) and it was around a turn. Fun!

Experienced skid-stop fixie riders may or may not remember these days with nostalgia or disdain, but for me, all new.

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If you read this for WENCHERY, you’ve been led astray.

So I’ve been talking with Mannie Rabara about helping him out on his fixie commuter for a few months now, but our mutual kid-management and work schedules have prevented either of us from getting to the other’s houses. Mannie rode Aids Lifecycle with us last year, and is the older brother of Maynard, the rad dude who donated his old Mixte frame that became the first Zoe Carrier. Mannie and I both went to Cal Poly for university, at different times. Anyway, he bought a Factory Fixie awhile back to get his feet wet, and decided it was time for, as we say, UPGRADES. I have a copious overstock of bike parts perpetually being sold, traded or stolen, so I hooked him up with some Sugino cranks and a shorty black stem (again, wrong site, for some of you)… the problem was merely getting it done. The plan was to install them for him and show him how to do it.

I had an opportunity to take Wee Z out for the morning to give her mombot(tm) a break, so I shot over the bridge and down to Oakland and met Mannie near his office. I’ve never actually BEEN to downtown Oakland before. It reminds me of Chicago: wide streets, similar heights and construction style of much of the buildings. No private place to work, so i said, what the hell, let’s do it on the street, the Team Lope way! (again, perhaps wrong site)

Zoe was eager to help, right out of the gate, and was wielding my field tool kit. It was a bit too heavy for her, admittedly.

Along with my regular tools, I brought everything needed for a full overhaul, since I wasn’t sure yet what to expect and I wanted him to be be able to ride away. Drivetrain tools, cog and lock ring tools, chain, Phils Lube, WD-40, and so on.

Downtown Oakland isn’t really sketchy, just more like upper lower Market, lots of homeless and dudes wandering around, mixed with working folk. I parked in front of a sweet Thai joint and set up in front of the MINI. I was aware of the spectacle, but hey. It must be done!

It went very well. His bike was new enough that there wasn’t a lot of junk in the bolts and the lube was still good for the most part so it came apart pretty easily. Which is what you want, doing field repairs. I pulled off his generic cranks and noted that his no name bottom bracket was probably not much different than the basic Shimano BB I brought, so we decided to leave it in place. I cleaned and mounted the new cranks, lubed and added his pedals and toe straps, and the tightened it all down. Reset the rear wheel, and sent him off to test it. I had brought extra cogs so we could change gearing if needed, as he was moving to a 46t chainring on the Sugino cranks, but he liked it as it was. Retightened after his test ride, gave him a 12mm key and some 2-day tips (you know, re-check and tighten everything after two days of riding) and he was good to go. He took the stem for later use, and was generally stoked to be able to ride back to work with his new gear good to go.

It was pretty fun. Best part was that I had a total of five different people stop and ask for my card, thinking I was a mobile bike tune-up kit. There’s definitely a market there. Everyone seemed into the idea that someone could come and help them with their bikes on their lunch hours, and you know, with the free time necessary, it could be fun to do just that, much like how Mike’s has a mobile mechanic out on the bike path during certain events and ALC training days. Mostly, I got a lot of interest from other passerby that just hadn’t seen bike repair in front of a Thai restaurant before.

Zoe slept through the whole thing.

I think Mannie’s fixie is on the fast track to customization and personalization, just as ours are. He already has the bug. What’s next? He has a new wheel and cranks and stem… possibly bars… maybe frame? And then he’s doomed! Nice to see Mannie and fun excursion in the middle of the 24-hour triage of newborn management…

Forgot to mention my work isn’t covered in the event of nuclear detonation, however. Oops.

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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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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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Many components of the Carpetbagger coupler project are reclaimed from other projects. It’s half the fun. This shot is of some of the small parts that were pulled from other bikes, cleaned with liberal amounts of WD-40, and ready for reuse. I have acquired three or four degreaser/cleaners for bike parts over the years, but you know what, for me, it’s all about spraying the hell out of it with WD-40 and buffing it out.

The bottom bracket spindle, plastic cowl, bearings and cups are from a Sugino 75 bottom bracket I got from Magnus from his ALC09 Mash build. The cog, chain, masterlink and crank bolts all came from Ghostal. There were a number of other parts being cleaned in a second round, for wrongbike’s rebuild but this was just for Carpetbagger. The rest were either new parts, or didn’t require a chemical bath.

It’s one of my favorite parts of a build, cleaning old stuff, especially parts right off of an old rustbucket. Which is interesting, since I generally dislike my hands being caked on with grime, grease or clay. But I find it very relaxing. I’ve learned to do it in very specific, controlled environments these days, though. I lost a bottom bracket cup on the first wrongbike build when it launched off of my loft deck into the hinterlands below, and I lost a few small items through the deck slats out back of my current place when working on one of the Crook builds. Now I’m slowly learning to protect the work area, ha. Dolt!

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