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

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

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

stoked!

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Well, I ran out of time.
Last night, on the way home, I said to myself: ‘self? Those sweet, sweet Sugino Keirin cogs are sweet, sweet, but for track racing. It’s probably not a good idea to be skidding all over town on them. I should go back to conventional cogs, so when it inevitably unwinds, I don’t have the splined cog flying onto the hub body.’
Thus, I ordered a Halo cog in 17t, gold, and called it a night. Should ship today, I’d have it by Friday or Monday, and be right as rain.

Then, today, I climbed up Loring, after a nice long skid down the street fro my house. Then I skidded several long stretches down the back side towards downtown. At the bottom (fortunately) at Miller, the old telltale dropped crank. I lost the cog again.

The lockring, which was as tight as I could get it, had unwound, the carrier unwound, and the cog, still on the chain, loose on the hub threads. Thread wire everywhere. I got it back together enough to ride to work, though I couldn’t thread the lockring. At the office, I pulled it apart, and retightened it, but to my chagrin, the lockring wouldn’t take. The threads on the hub have taken too much stress. I get the lockring almost as tight as possible… give it a last push, and it loosens… then retightens… so the thread is bad at that point.

So, I’m in for a new rear wheel on top of it. It is what it is, however what I’ll miss is the sweet, sweet gold hub. Back to black for a pre-built wheel.

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You see what I did there.
Just an observation: my 18t cog from my Sugino Keirin carrier system is wearing down nicely. These are, by their nature, more likely to wear faster, as they are alloy for weight savings, vs steel. It’ll be interesting to see how far it goes before it starts slipping the chain. It’s been about 3,000 miles or so, which is just fine, though now that there are more forces in the opposing direction, who knows…

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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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Of the many self-inflicted wounds in incurred on my various bike projects, a disturbingly high number of them statistically have come from shim-shamming the loosening of chainring bolts. I have the conventional tools for such business, but working with older chainrings where they’ve seized? Welcome to an exciting inside-out view of your own cuticles. Anyway, the VAR 352 seems like a big tool for a small job, but it’s pretty effing awesome.

And now that the photos are out, you can clearly create your own with some super glue and an old vice. Win!

http://cyclingwmd.blogspot.com/2011/11/ … -ever.html

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With all it’s bells and whistles, mind.

"In the urban experiment, project ‘LIFECYCLE: 365 days in the life of a bike in NYC’, a fully-fledged Hudson Urban Bicycles bike—accessorized with a bell, a basket, lights, a side mirror, and a bottle—was chained to a post along a busy street in SoHo, on 1 January 2011, and left there.

The agency took a picture of the bike everyday for 365 days, watching it slowly vanish, part by part.

Photos were made into a daily calendar that might be used to promote the bike shop, Hudson Urban Bicycles.

Good news New Yorkers, your bike would be fine for 128 days—but don’t leave your bikes unattended."

Watch the video they made here: http://designtaxi.com/news/351364/How-Long-Will-A-Bike-Last-On-The-Streets-In-NYC/?month=&year=

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i imagine these grrls probably need training wheels to use a spoon, but nonetheless, HERE’S your "how to lube a chain" sexytime video.

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as you may or may not remember/care, when i BUILT up my new cinelli x MASH bolt, i reverted to my beloved white industries ENO crankset. i’ve always loved that crankset because it’s lighter than air, and while it had it’s drawbacks (proprietary chainring attachment means you’re limited to using only their chainwheels, which max out at 44t), it was a strong, reliable set. unfortunately, i loved it so much that i used it on 4 different builds (2 different incarnations of one bike and 1 each of two others), and i used it HARD, which meant that by the time it hit the bolt (the fourth build), the attachment point was stretched and mauled to the point of not being able to be secured tightly. i had to adjust it nearly every day and it still had a slight slip to it on the left side. so it was time.

i waffled back and forth on a couple of different options when i was making my decision, but i eventually landed on the sugino messenger crankset. it’s as versatile as any other 5-point spider system but it’s made with the specific rigors of city riding in mind, which was my final deciding factor.

i’m not currently in much of a position to offer a proper review on it as there are just too many factors at play — between the holidays and a cold, i haven’t been on my bike in over a week, and because i mistakenly thought i had a 16t cog at the house (i didn’t), i’m running this new 44t chainwheel on a 15t cog, which sticks me with a beastly 77+ gear inch. so the cranks really don’t matter shit right now cause it’s all i can do to get the thing moving off a light. once i’m going it hauls fucking ass, but i still need to normalize some stuff before i can give you full thoughts.

what i can say is that i’ve installed a lot of cranks on a lot of different bikes over my lifetime and this one was the easiest by FAR. i don’t know if it was the new BB or if it was the cranks themselves or some factor of both, but these went on like fucking BUTTER. and their construction is such that they use a scant 103mm BB to get a 43mm chainline. very, VERY well-engineered and constructed.

with only one half of a commute on them so far, i have noticed that they are rock-solid on first install. when i got to work today i went to give them a quick re-tightening, as you do, but they hadn’t budged. i’ll try again the next couple rides just to be sure, but i’m impressed with that.

this was also the first crankset i’ve purchased since the redline flight cranks i bought for my BMX in like ’89 which came with the mounting bolts. i don’t know what the fuck it is, but the majority of cranks that i’ve bought over the last 2 decades have come with just the cranks (and often a chainwheel). so you have to re-use or re-purchase crank bolts. and these not only came with them, but they were allen heads versus 14mm standard bolts. random observation, but still worth mentioning.

i’m very much looking forward to getting that 16t cog this weekend so i can normalize my gear inch and give these a proper run, but so far, nothing but win.

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THIS may be the most gorgeous bicycle i’ve ever seen in my life.

the southsiders are a euro motorcycle club with an incredible aesthetic, loads of class, and a love of bicycles as well. as such, they recently teamed up with some frame builders to develop their own bicycle.

now, i don’t believe this is, or is ever going to be, on sale to the public, but that doesn’t make it any less overpoweringly awesome. moreso, in fact.

the details are immaculate. the geometry is very reminsicent of turn-of-the century bicycles, and it’s a coaster brake single speed, so there are no cables whatsoever on it. the stem, cranks, chain guide, and 3-pronged axle wingnuts are all custom fabricated. and the most incredible detail of all, at least to me, is the integrated lighting. the handlebars have inset, front-facing white lights near the clamp area, and rear-facing red lights at the ends. and in the back, the single sickest cycling light setup i’ve ever seen — red lights integrated into THE SEAT STAYS.

click through for a whole bunch more photos, each more glorious than the one before.

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You know anyone riding for any length of time ends up with periodic chain tattoos, in other words bike grease stamps on the calves or shins from striking the chain on the bike while riding…? Why not help that process along, and stamp them with the business end of one of these.

Except, you know, not on a cyclist, but an ant-cyclist. Or, if you HAVE to strike a cyclist, make it one of the three-riders-wide wannabe roadies on the bike path.

http://chicagobikelife.com/post/11955407042/knuckles

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