I’m doing a sell-off of some stuff from the shop.

Item 1: Saris Thelma 3 hitch bike rack: best design I’ve ever used, clamshell clamps the front wheel, so unusual frames are no problem. Fits a 1-1/4" hitch, carries up to three bikes, and I have extra parts. $250

Item 2: H+Son Track Wheelset: custom made by 718c in Brooklyn; black SL42 H+Son rims black laced (double butted) to Soma hubs (black front, gold rear) though note the fixed side of the hub has some damage, so you run this as a freewheel on the other side or replace the hub. Basically throwing the wheel in with the front. $140

Item 3: Origin 8 Track Wheelset, all white: white on white on white. Unmachined front so you can see some brake smear but very lightly used all around. $75

Pick up if local to the SF Bay Area, otherwise shippable.
Contact me however you can, via comments, PM email etc

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Hahaha, I couldn’t get over the fact that this micro-training wheels BMX bike has holes drilled for brakes front and rear.

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I was telling Lung about this frame over the weekend. An e-friend of mine, Kevin, rides this custom Spicer frame with a noBrake bridge that I love. A brake bridge on a fixie is as functional as the vermouth is in my martinis (ie. I wave the vermouth bottle around like a shaman, thats about it)… assuming the frame isn’t relying on it for structural support, which this clearly is not…I love the arc and how tight it is to the wheel.

You can check out Kevin’s Kaiju Melt custom figures here. Awesome stuff.

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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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Lung and I both use this fender. It’s awesome in 33,000 ways (it folds up and tucks away nicely, it’s beautifully simple, and it’s aesthetically pleasing) but one thing we both noticed is that it tends to slip at the brake bridge pivot point after a spell of riding. I suspect it’s from skidding.

Anyway, SOLVED.

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So coming off a short but annoying cold I could tell my asthma was doing it’s usual thing and packing the congestion in my lungs like hibernation of pestilence, so something needed to be done. Also, I was itching to get some exercise after my bday and post-bday debauchery. Also, I changed the gearing on Crook Type 3 to 76 and was hot to try it on my Loring climb Alternate Commute Route. So I did. On a frosty, windy morning.

The climb was going to be tough, just judging from GETTING to it, having ridden this bike this route so many times. It’s a modest wavy grade to get to where Loring starts, and by the time I did, I was noticing my legs burning from trying to maintain my customary cadence. Heading up, the main difference was the point at which I hopped out of the saddle, which was a few hundred feet sooner. Otherwise, my performance was the same: no stops, slow grinding mash, and relieved to get to the top. That said, I had a much longer recovery at the top. I actually circled a few times before descending the other side because I wanted to attempt a brake free Alternate Commute Route and the legs felt fatigued.

After that, the descent was a combination of short skids to control speed, back pedaling and a few long skids at the appropriate places. I got to work without using the break I mean brake, which was nice. My quads felt tight, though.

When I left in the evening, I was feeling some soreness in my legs in about three or four places. Ride home was cold and windy and I mashed to get home in time to relieve the nanny, so to speak, so that combined with all the skidding, added to the work being done and you know how it is with muscle fatigue: it’s not any one thing you did or even the combination of them, it’s what you did PAST the point where your muscles were cooked. Having been off the bike for several days and having not done that climb in about a week and a half were all enough to probably make my muscles complain, but adding the bigger gearing to it again was the last straw for me ole quads. So last night I was stiff as a board throughout, getting the baby and chasing cats and what have you, and this morning, more of the same. It was ‘stairs are difficult’ level soreness, not too bad but very noticeable. Enough that my daughter kept asking ‘whatchoo doo on your knee!’

Swim class with her this morning was perfect for it though, as I loosened up and flushed them out a bit, and then I rode in after and got more of the lactic acid moving around and I’m feeling pretty good.

Still, I digress. That was all the unexpected outcome of Loring on the bigger gear for the first time. The point was loosening up my chest, and I’m happy to report that I sounded like Doc Holliday for three hours after I got to work. Tuberculosis cough, I mean. Also quotes: ‘you’re a daisy if ya do!’

Great ride! I love feeling the fruits of my efforts, and knowing that five similar rides from now I won’t be feeling that soreness.

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So yesterday started as a light rain day. Enough that I could do some fun skids, have a good time getting to work, but not enough to warrant a helmet cover.

By early afternoon, my coffee run, by which I mean coffee ride, by which I mean a ride around town culminating in the coffee for which I claimed I went, was wet. The rain was coming at 45 degree angles and a bit harder.

By evening, however, as I prepared to leave the office and get home to my birthday action, the rain was dumping. I mean DUMPING. Sheets of rain at angles, flooding on the street, the whole deal. I suited up and took off, and had arguably the hardest rain ride ever for me. (hardest rain, not hardest ride).

It was coconuts: I rode through flooded sections deep enough that my feet were submerged, though not quite my BB; I was getting sprayed by cars flying past me but didn’t care of course; I could barely see, even with the sunglasses protecting my eyes; the rain was coming down hard enough to feel like light hail, you know? Stinging the face and hands, that sort of thing. I DRANK rainwater. And My skids were ridiculous to the point of near calamity. I can’t claim a no-brake ride because as I dropped this short hill and pulled a out-of-the-seat whip I just stopped precisely ZERO amount so I had to jump ont he brake before blowing the intersection, ha. The rest of the time was all seat skids and did fine in the wet. And the wind? huge gusts blowing me around, the trees swaying, etc. COCONUTS.

When I got to the house, it looked like I had been swimming in my clothes. My torso was warm and dry, thanks to my pancho, but the bottom half of me was comical. Anyway, what a fun ride on my birthday! I loved it!

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My practicing of ambi skids is still slow going. However, my other tasks continue to improve. I’ve been practicing skidding on different bars (and by extension, different geometries)… certainly Crook is the easiest to skid with, being a pursuit frame, and the bulls letting you get way forward. But I’ve now been able to skid on Rapscallion (the baby cargo bike, currently now only a cargo bike), Wrongbike and Carpetbagger. That’s in the drops (Wrongbike), on risers (Rapscallion) and on rising arcs (Carpetbagger)… but the Wrongbike situation leads to the next task: sit skids.

Being able to skid from the tops of the pista bars on wrongbike led to my cracking the sit skid. Before this, I could sort of accomplish it by getting into the drops or bulls or whatever, and I could get a bit of sit skid, but not much. Once I could skid from the bartops (granted, not long skids) I was able to focus on the lift and skid necessary to skid seated. I love it.

More arrows, you see! Now I can, for the first time, ride without my finger resting out of habit on the lever. If I see something happening, I can initiate a sit skid while getting to the brake.

Next up, more ambi skid practice, and I’m in the early stages of working on one hand sit skid. Which, of course, means coffee carriage.

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This is a lot like what Wrongbike was trying to be in it’s last incarnation. Though less polished. Well, WB was less polished. Had the flask though.

Same bike as the integrated brake…
http://trdl.tumblr.com/post/18453167162 … oks-i-mean

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Love how there’s a notch in the lever for the bar end brake levers.

http://trdl.tumblr.com/post/18452959834 … ke-and-the

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