Readers and fellow riders will recall my obsession with the 2003 Look racing frame, the KG381. I coveted it at the time. I got it’s skinny cousin used in 2006, and gave it away to a thief with a Bic pen. I got a consumer line KG381 Jalabert Edition, which I rode for about 3 years, and then scored a KG381 Team spare frame from the Tour, and after building it up as a fixed-gear for awhile, I finally converted THAT frame into my road bike, and sold off the Jaja.

Well, the Team frame was always big for me. I had the seatpost slammed, I had the stem low and small, and the seat forward on the rails as much as possible. It was doable, but after my pelvis and back injury, I’ve come to find the Look to difficult to ride comfortably. I can RIDE it, but I don’t LIKE riding it. The bigness haunted me, even being only modestly too large. But as I’ve come to find, fitment becomes even more important once you’re injured. Thus, I poured a sip out of my coffee for ole Villain, and started the hunt for something new.

With a baby on the way, and a need to not screw myself over financially any more than I already have, I knew I was working backwards on technology. I wasn’t going to find a carbon frame I liked to replace the carbon frame I loved. But riding aluminum (Crook) over long distances, including to LA, taught me that I could deal with the road vibration when properly insulated. So that helped: it would be lighter steel, or aluminum. Looking around, I couldn’t shake my disinterest in almost everything out there. No cash for a custom frame. I narrowed it down to Cinelli. I wasn’t a fan of their graphics these days on the road bikes (all sorts of lines and grids like 80s Tron merchandising) but started looking backwards in the line, at new old stock and used frames. After a few days of hunting, I stumbled upon a small shop in Oregon that was sitting on a few Cinelli frames they got as a closeout from a Canadian distributor. Few, as in one S, one L, and one XL. Unused, still packed up, never built up. And for a SONG. So, best part: these were 2008s, when Cinelli offered generally monochrome schemes on some of the bikes. And in nuclear trigger red/orange! So, I snatched it up. The unboxing pic is above.

You know, I had a lot of misgivings about giving up the Look. I loved the matte black carbon and minimal decals. I loved the exclusivity of it. But I have to tell you, I’m adapting JUST fine to this new frame. It’s like… magma!

I have the Levi Leipheimer King Ridge Gran Fondo this Saturday, so the race is on to have it built up and road tested by then. I snuck in last night and started the process. I got as far as headset, cockpit (complete), front and rear strung brakes, and wheels. I’m waiting on some used SRAM Red cranks I ordered, to play nicer with my derailleur, and then I’ll do the drivetrain. It’s admittedly easier to build up a road bike when you’re stripping a road bike you only built up a year ago. Everything’s in great shape. I had to change the brake cable routing (the Cinelli isn’t internal routing like the Look) and a few other things, but so far so good. The blurry picture above shows the current state of it: orange and black.

I had a few scares: for one, when I was trying to pull the front Dura Ace brake caliper off of Villain the nut was bound up, and in muscling it, I felt the brake explode in my hand and heard something ping across the shop. I have a rock floor. Losing small parts is the bane of my work down there. Anyway, all was not lost: the spring had come loose from the calipers and the plastic sheath for it was what had tried to escape. And miraculously, after about 20 minutes with a head-mounted light, I found it, and fixed the brake.

Also, when I brought the frame into the shop from the car, I was mollified to discover paint scraped away all over the seat post receiver. I couldn’t believe it. Did I grind it against something? Was it effed up and I didn’t notice it in the unboxing? I was conjuring various electrical tape based fixes, when I found the cause: the seatpost collar, which I had been missing, was on the floor in the car, and the paint scrape was from the collar clamping onto the frame, and being pulled off somehow in my loading/unloading of the MINI. Found it as I was loading Z up for a return trip to the office to search the box for seat clamps. HA!

Anyway, build in process, but I’m pretty pleased about the Phoenix-style rebirth of sweet-as happening here.

PS New bike name, influenced by the bright orange/red color: ROGUE

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1. Bike Build Process Log- Rogue: Reincarnated!
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So awhile ago I noted that I set out to do a bike rebuild for my loving wifebot(tm). She has a Bianchi road bike but also wanted something old school, upright, more mellow to ride around on our future family rides. So I found this amazing catch at Re-Cyclery in San Rafael. It’s some townie from the Southeast Asian market, complete with inexplicable wheelguard detailing, amazing pie platery, and pushrod brakes. I love it.

So a few weeks back, I took a break from a deadline and tuned it up enough for a size check. My wifebot(tm) is 5′-1" and has shorter legs so often even small women’s bikes don’t fit. So, I got it sorted for her, complete with brakes and gearing adjusted, air in the tyres etc and it worked great. She’s excited. Unfortunately she won’t be on it until next summer, with the baby coming and all. But it’ll be ready for her.

I did end up, at least for the test, pulling Redcoat’s front wheel. The wheel looks OK on Jaunty, but it had no tube and the rubber was a bit cracked, so since I didn’t have any spare balloon tyre tubes, i just did a wheel swap for the time being.

Anyway, it’s excellent. I love those pushrods (Thatswhatshesaid)

More to come…

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3. Bike Build Process Log- Rapscallion: The Hanging

So yesterday was another meeting in the city, after which I had a delicious lunch with wifebot(tm) at Bocadillos, our local favorite, and then pulled Carpetbagger, my coupler travel bike, out of the MINI and rode back to the office in Marin thereon. And it was a great ride day: the cold, foggy, wind-whipped SF weather broke on the far side of the bridge and it was sunny and reasonable the rest of the way to the office.

However, I had a few problems. On Bay, on a steep uphill, a contractor truck took his lane wide and squeezed me off the road as the parked cars and him left about 3mm for me to ride in, forcing me to dismount and walk the last 10 feet or so, which was frustrating. But hey, whatever, he probably didn’t see me. The bridge remains a mess, as pedestrian and bike traffic for both directions are sequestered to the east side of the bridge, overloading it and causing serious safety problems. Again, though, no big deal, got through it.

But on the way down? At the last descending section of Alexander, shortly before entering Sausalito, I had an altercation. Tourist busses and various vehicles stop suddenly on that descent, just like they do in SF and in Sausalito. They don’t look for bikes, they don’t pull off the road, they just STOP. This forces bikes and cars to go around them. In the case of cars, it’s technically not even legal to pass them. But anyway, there’s usually room to do so one way or another, assuming everyone avoided getting collected on their bumper and no tourists on Blazing Saddles rental bikes weren’t thrown overboard. But at the bottom of that section, as we enter Sausalito proper, the crown of the road that had acted like a bike lane? Gone. So you’re just in traffic, like normal, but on a steep drop. So, a pickup in front of me pulled to a complete stop at an intersection that has no stop sign. He was over to the right, so I thought he was dropping someone off or picking someone up. No big deal, I just slowed, and then went around him on his left. Just as he suddenly jerked left to male a left turn. No signal. No warning.

We did not collide but my wheel was right to his driver’s door. There we were, complete stop, no deaths, and he leans out his window in a rage and says ‘you cant do that!!!!’ so i said ‘you can’t stop in the middle of the road! I was going around you!’ he said ‘I was turning, you can’t just go wherever you want!’ so I said ‘Consult your Owner’s Manual for the turn signals asshole!’ and then rolled forward. He lurched forward more, blocking me. ‘You’re the asshole!’ so I watched as he was rolling into opposing traffic that slammed on their brakes. ‘You’re about to have an accident, dick. Good work!’ and then as he started cursing, I regained my composure and just waved him down. ‘just go. JUST GO.’ and fortunately, he did. And so did I.

However.

I felt really bad about it. Now look, DO have the legal right to go around him. I am allowed to share the lane in the vehicle code. We actually all have that right, but only motorcycles and bicycles can do it practically. Passing on the left is not allowed. However, we were on a single lane road and I did not ‘pass’ in the sense that the vehicle code defines passing as a lane change, which I did not make. Now, in normal traffic, I do not pass on the left of a car, merely because unlike the right, there’s virtually no chance of me being seen. Cars turning right generally have to look right when doing so, so they MAY see you in time, and anyway, that’s where they expect you to be, if at all. Cars turning left are looking straight ahead. So, I would never defend my placement in that incident as being the safe or desirable place to be in a traffic condition. That said, he was stopped. No signal. To the right. Then slammed left, no signal. So. He DID break the law, and I didn’t.

But what bothered me was that every time we have an altercation with a driver, the impact is felt on bicyclists at an exponential rate. That driver tears off pissed at cyclists. not me. CYCLISTS. Add that to every other reasonable (safe distance behind bikes, bikes forced to take the lane as allowed for safety) and unreasonable (roadies two or three ride in the road blocking traffic) bike encounter that frustrates that driver and it’s a pressure cooker. Many cyclists, sometimes me included, ride around grumbling with a grudge against drivers, as we have learned from our day to day experiences. Totally unfair, majority of the drivers being attentive and reasonable people, using compassion and good judgment. But we don’t have much ability to cause harm to drivers. When drivers go off half-cocked and have a grudge against cyclists, the road rage thing percolates until we have aggressive driving threatening riders, violence towards bikes, and worse.

I hated that I got into it with him. I wanted to be able to go back and find that guy and say ‘look, we shouldn’t have lost our heads back there. You thought I was in the wrong, I thought you were, but big picture, no deaths. I’m sorry I yelled at you, and I’m sorry I startled you being on that side.’ even though very likely he’d never understand that hos own driving behavior led to that encounter. I just didn’t like the fact that he drove off thinking I was just another asshole cyclists tearing down that hill, shooting around him, and then yelling at him for daring to make a turn. I would have loved to have been able to actually TALK to him about what happened, and at the very least apologize for losing my cool. Neither of us were even yelling, it was all verbal.

But I rode to work stewing about letting myself stoop to the level of conflict that other people engage in regularly on the road. I did none of us any favors.

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even though i tend to be an old-school guy who prefers friction shifters to indexed, or a fixed drivetrain to a multi-gear drivetrain in general, i have to say, THIS is fucking sick to me.

the toyota prius project concept bike is a collaboration between toyota and parlee cycles, in which several forward-thinking concepts were developed and executed. dig the front brakes integrated in the rear of the fork. the cyclist stat readout integrated into the stem. lots of really cool shit, but the crowning achievement is without a doubt the thought-activated wireless shifting integrated into the helmet. an array of sensors placed at various points on the cyclist’s head pick up the places where thoughts of shifting take place, and viola! you shift with your fucking MIND.

the most comprehensive overview is at prolly (first link above), but you can go to the project’s dedicated SITE for more if you like.

amazing.

also, beautiful…

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So here’s an interesting problem: using old stock centerpull brakes on a modern track frame with a 1 1/8" threadless steerer. Usually these brakes are on older bikes with 1" threaded steerers. You use a cable hanger that mounts within the threaded headset assembly, and it keeps the brake cable taut between the hanger and the brake’s transverse cable (and the coathanger clip, as I call them, being a knave). What happens when you don’t use a hanger? Well, on side-pull modern brakes, with reasonably short cable lengths and minimal bends, you get OK braking. On centerpulls, you get precisely zero braking, since you can’t set up the vertical cable position without a hanger. There are some products on the market to alleviate this, such as a Problem Solvers hanger that acts like a headset spacer with a fluted tube coming off of it. There are a few others, but none have much grace to their designs… they’re really intended for cross, and that’s all modern equipment and generally not glamorous (if you’re doing it right, you shouldn’t even be able to SEE this hanger under all the mud).

But I was doing some browsing around and came across a reference on a cyclocross blog about a field mod someone did where they clipped a rod under their stem clamp, in order to gain the clearance they needed for their application. I was inspired, and actually pretty thrilled, because I LOVE old timey hangers that use a thumb lever, and I had two from the Vista ten-speed that eventually begat Wrongbike (the front using one of the hangers)… the rear hanger was as you would expect, a small notched ring intended to fit within the seat binder bolt assembly. Say it in an old-timey style, with enthusiasms: "it just… might… WORK!"

So I went down there late last night, dug around, found the hanger, and in a moment of great synchronicity, installed it under one of the stem bolts. See, this was awesome because I specifically got a funky stem that has a removable bar clamp despite being pretty classic in shape. So, that gave me a bolt to use. From there, it was fine tuning the clamp, stringing the brake and so on.

It works! At least so far. Sure, I could have just used a fine side-pull brake and alleviated this problem, and if all else fails, I will… but I like the stopping power of centerpull, which even the Mechanic in the Sky Sheldon Brown conceded was better when calibrated than a sidepull. So hey.

Anyway, much ado about a very minor detail, but hey, thinking outside of the box on frankenbuilds goes a long way, I says. And it’s interesting…

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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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i have had a tumultuous relationship with spoke cards over the years. when i first moved to SF in 91 (and actually even before, when i’d spend my summer vacation from school living here with my dad), i noticed a VERY few couriers on bikes with one speed, no brakes, and a bunch of weird postcards stuck into the spokes of their wheels. i figured out the bikes right away, but the cards always eluded me. eventually i found out that they were markings of participation in alleycat races — underground, messenger-only, often track-bike-specific, often DRUNKEN, city races.

smash cut forward to the initial hipsterification of the track bike phenomenon. the neon triSpoke days (and what horrible days they were). as soon as the kids started emulating the couriers, they started making their own spoke cards, too. their cards didn’t mean that they’d participated in anything other than the wholesale hijacking of a sub-sub-culture’s secret language. their cards were … whatever they were, postcards their fucking parents sent them from paris or whatever, who gives a fuck. the cards lost all meaning immediately. the couriers stopped using them ENTIRELY. it was their own way of further identifying the posers (beyond all the obvious ways).

fast forward a bit to today. spoke cards have finally settled back into a normal place in the zeitgeist. some couriers use them again, now back in their rightful place as alleycat participation identifiers. some of us regulars use them, sometimes as our own alleycat identifiers, sometimes as decoration, but never overdone anymore. some organizations even use them now, such as the SFBC’s bike-to-work-day accident checklist spokecard (which is AWESOME), or chrome bags’ critical mass participation sale card. they’ve finally made it past their uncomfortable middleground.

so i finally felt comfortable going for it. over all these years, i’ve used TWO spoke cards, each on separate days, one for the entire day (the aforementioned SFBC BTWD spoke card), and one for a few hours (the also-aforementioned chrome bags’ CM participation sale card). but this one is gonna stay for the duration (however long that is). it’s my hell’s angels san francisco chapter support sticker spoke card. i purchase small gifts from the frisco HA every year in order to support their organization, and the small gifts you’re able to do so with always say something about "support," which, according to the angels, gives you the right to wear/use them because you’ve given money, you’re showing your support, and you’re in no way claiming to BE an angel. so i bought a grip of stickers and stuck two of them back-to-back to make this spoke card.

win!

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Re-Cycle is a Northern California used bike shop that accepts donated bikes and accessories, refurbishes or cleans them up, and then sells them for a charity program. I mean, right off the bat, you want to buy as much as you can there, right? Even if you weren’t a bike build enthusiast.

Oh, but I am!

Onward: I have been wanting to get out to Re-Cycle for about a year, ever since I learned about it, but only now had the opportunity to take a long lunch and shoot over. I like to multitask my errands, and had a bike part craigslist pick-up in SR same day, so. The goal was: look for suitable track or trackable frames for couplng, and look for potential raw projects for a gift bike for my loving wifebot(tm).

I was unsuccessful on the frame hunt. I saw several great project frames, including two road frames fromt he 70s that had long horizontal or diagonal drops (perfect for track conversion) but both were 58cm and I’m 56cm and I’ve learned, through my Looks, that it’s frustrating when you adapt to a frame too big or too small. So I walked from those.

However, there were finds:

1. Sweet 3T Stem! This was my favorite stem mfr other than Thomson. Of course, in both cases, it’s because we’re talking matte black stems with white block letters, but also because the 3T, like the Thomson X4, is a 2-bolt bar clamp, AND, there’s the name thing. You know I dork out and like Thomson parts for the name. And of course, same same, 3 T ? HA. Anyway, this was a great find, because it’s the right length, and it can be used on Villain, where my other black Thomson X4 currently lives, allowing me to swap the X4 over to the new MASH build to keep things all Thomson over there. Perfect! Also? $22.

2. Sweet Elmo Hobby Horse: We’ve been looking forward to getting a hobby horse for Wee Z, though she’s still too short for it. We wanted to get a wooden one. They are very expensive. Oh, and she’s obsessed with Elmo, of course. BOOM! With fully-lowerable seat. Price? $30 negotiated down form $50.

3. And here’s the sweetest. I found an incredibly cool project bike for wifebot(tm). It’s a mixte from the southeast-asian market. It has rod brakes. It has pie plates. It is Guaranteed World Finest Bicycle Precision Mechanism! I’m stoked. If she ends up hatin it, you know this will be mine.

I"m just loving this place as a resource. One weekend, Lung and I are going to take a drive over and spend THE DAY. I think, if we were crafty, we could actually BUILD a frankebike and ride it out.

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Lung and I were talking earlier about the comparative number of times each of us have been forcibly dismounted in our urban riding. It got me thinking: setting aside the potential end result of calamity, what’s the dodgiest riding you’ve done?

For me, one of them was in LA in HS, getting trapped between two transit buses. I passed one that was stopped, but was in turn being passed by another one, and then the first one took off so now I was stuck between them. Over two lanes. I remember the trangle of safety narrowing and narrowing as the accelerating bus entered that right lane and I got sandwiched. I slammed on the left bus’ window with my fist, but the passenger was a little chinese lady and she just watched me. HA. I hit the brakes and shot back behind them. Just in time.

I could also include riding down a construction site grade on my mountain bike, crashing and breaking my jaw (which I left out of our earlier conversation by accident, the one time I WAS hospitalized) and I should also include the numerous admitted rides to coffee helmetless, and one recent night ride, also helmetless by necessity, strafed by Range Rovers and deer.

What’s yours?

[Image from here]

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I like interesting build mods as much as the next guy (who happens to engineer them high as a kite and therefore both awesomely and with dread) but running the brake cable through the stem bolt (not aesthetically pleasing, but we’ve all thought about it) and down to a drum brake? Hm.

http://blog.pedalroom.com/interesting-brake-setup

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