Team Lope Tyre Clubbe » chainring

Presenting the VAR 352

TRDL thom — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:04:00 +0000

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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upgrades

ironlung — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:27:05 +0000

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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One Big Ring

TRDL thom — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:18:10 +0000

I didn’t count the links or anything, but I’m pretty sure to crank this (without skitching the drag car as they always do on these landspeed bikes) you’d need to generate 1.21 jigawatts.

http://fixthecity.es/post/9119276317/bi … -chainring

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Wrenchery in Downtown Oakland

TRDL thom — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:37:36 +0000

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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Team Lope Ride Report: Gran Fondo Fireball

TRDL thom — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:50:14 +0000

Team Lope Ride Report: Gran Fondo Fireball

You know that trope in romantic comedies, where the protagonist suffers all manner of circumstantial and personal disasters before being lifted by a beautiful girl in the third act? Well, I had one of those. The 2011 Levi Leiphiemer King Ridge Gran Fondo was like that, but at the end, I saw my gorgeous daughter run up and squeeze my face, so I got the happy ending. And I’ll tell you in advance, there were no deaths, and my spirits were high throughout, so this is not a tale of woe. But read on, for the biggest logistical disaster in Team Lope history.

Preparation

As you may have read in earlier posts, about a week before the Gran Fondo, I made the decision to change road bike frames. My Look KG381 Team carbon frame, my pride and joy, was a size too big, now becoming a real issue with my back and pelvis injury to deal with. I decided to give up the ghost on the Look, hunted for a more suitably sized frame, lucked into a sweet NOS Cinelli Xperience from 2007, and set out to get it ready for the ride. I built up the majority of the bike earlier in the week late at night, then hit a snag due to needing new shifter cables and housings, and with time running out, I took it down to Tam Bikes for a re-string and deraiileur adjustment. As much as I wanted to do the build myself (my second time on a proper road bike) time was of the essence, as family obligations would prevent me from getting down to the shop again before the ride. This would give me a day to test ride it to work, make any tweaks, and I’d be ready. Or so I thought. Taking it in, the shop was slammed, but agreed to fit it in… by Friday at closing. This meant no test and tweak time, but at least I’d be ride-ready. My wifebot(tm) got one of her increasingly bad feelings about the ride. She encouraged abandoning it. But I had two other riders depending on me for a ride, and frankly, I had contingencies. Gran Fondo has some seriousness to it, no question: more arduous in some ways than the Tam Climbing Century in terms of gradients, and lots of intermediate climbs peppered through the course. But if I couldn’t get the bike done, I’d take the MASH. Looking at the ride profile, there were two sections where I’d have little hope of staying on the bike, even pre-back-injury, as the gradients were too steep and the climbs too long. But hell, I’d ride the thing fixed as I often do in these events, and where I needed to hoof it. I’d hoof it. I’d still get a great ride in. Meanwhile, adding to the bad mojo, Team Lope’s Muadib had a crash a few weeks ago, horfing his road bike to bits, and while he survuved unscatched, he was out of the Gran Fondo as a result. And Eric nearly got creamed on the way into Mill Valley on Friday as well. The near-misses and snags were mounting.

Build complete, 11:55pm the night before.

Friday afternoon, no word from the shop. Later in the day, I was informed a message was left for me on voicemail, and that the bike wouldn’t be completed. This was a bad time for my Google Voice account to have the ‘silent message’ error. No data. I didn’t know what was wrong, but since they weren’t going to be able to do it, my wifebot(tm) graciously shot over in the MINI with a sleeping Z, grabbed me, took me over to the shop so that I could get the bike, and see what my options were. The shop was slammed and they ran into some issues so the bike wasn’t going to happen. However, the only reason I had brought it in was that I ran out of shifter cable and housing at home and didn’t have any more time. So they gave me cable and housing pro bono and I figured what the hell, I’d give it a go! So now I was back where I left off on Wednesday night: my remaining tasks were to restring the brifters, string up the derailleurs, and adjust them. I’ve done this once before, on Villain, so I was ready to take it slow and get through it. I’ve confessed before that I find deraiileur adjustment maddening, with the two limit screws on each, the adjusters, etc. I just don’t have a good sequencing set-up. But I had at it. My comedy of errors, however, continued. First, the rear derailleur was missing the pinch bolt, which apparently must have dropped back at the LBS. I stole one off of my old Dura Ace rear and proceeded with only minimal workaround. Next,t he Jagwire cable housing I got from the shop? I couldn’t cut it cleanly. It splayed out into all the fiber fragments, thanks to my wire cutter being designed for electronics and not a nice sharp one for this application. I ended up recovering cable housings from, believe it or not, the torn-down groupo from the Vista 10-speed that became wrongbike! HA. So, that would have to do in a pinch. Thinner housings, easier to cut. Next problem: my SRAM 10-speed chain was too short. It used to be WAY too short when I first strung up Villain (The SRAM instructions describe stringing big ring to big ring, and adding a link; later readings of third party guides say they mean one outer set, one inner set, of links; so I was one link short) but on this build, I was using a compact 50 tooth chainring so I thought I’d be safe. I was going to avoid crossing into that big cog from the big ring (as you should anyway) and just keep that risk factor in mind. Next, I was out of black electrical tape. WHAT! You say? The fixed-rider’s best friend? But it’s true. I had one roll at the office, gave one roll to a rider in need a few months ago and Zoe ran off with another. Suddenly, I had none of the stuff, just in time to rewrap my bars. I ended up re-using the tape from before, which wasn’t pleasant but got it done. By 11:45pm I had the bike completed, and took it down the street for a test. I was having rubbing in the back and it took a few to figure it out: the skewer slipped out of one of the drops. I’m so used to track axles now that I forgot that if you don’t really wrench those skewers down, they can pull out from chain tension (!) and it did. What’s a little more lost frame paint? So, by midnight, I was upstairs, bike was done, and I was ready to get a few hours sleep before getting up for the early start. My derailleurs needed help but I was banking on some ride mechanical support for that. I’d at least be on the road. Wifebot(tm) was still unhappy about me going: my cough remained, suggesting illness, we had to rent a car so that I could bring myself and two riders with me up there, and all the portents of doom leading up to it gave her the concerns, especially as she is full term and I need to be avaialble in case the baby comes early. But I wanted to give it a shot. I like reaching a quitting point and instead, doing the opposite of quitting. In other words, not quitting. And anyway, had the road bike not come together, I’d bring the MASH and do it fixed anyway, and if I had to walk up the entire Coleman climb, I would. It’s the Team Lope way. If I can ride to LA on a fixed-gear, I have enough legs for this ride.

Ride Day

We drove over to Santa Rosa nice and early, with bagels and coffees and not much traffic, and parked about a mile away from the start at Finley Park, as the parking near to the event was limited and a problem with local businesses in previous years. We headed out on the bikes, and I left my vest and warmers in the car because it was already reasonable in temperature. Go ahead and keep a running tabulation in your head about all the things I’m mentioning that would backfire later. We’ve got last minute build, a used 10-speed chain with probably the 1000 miles on it already that these rinky-dink light chains are supposed to top out at (can you believe that? single speed chains and heavier gauge MTB chains, even 8/9 speed road chains, these can go forever… but 10 speed narrow chains with hollow pins? No), clothing layers left behind…

Systemic Failure

OK, so about a half mile from the camp, everyone’s ahead of me, and we’re waiting at the light. I decide that my bars are still a little low (SRAM brifters want to be higher on the drops, so I reseated them when I restrung the brifters, but they still needed a bit more height) and pulled my 3-head hex key out and made the adjustment. I was using a trusty Thomson X2 stem, a two bolt design. I adjusted while on the bike. Apparently, I’m told later, that was my mistake, because you can’t as easily judge the torque. I always thought torque bolts failed intentionally, such as we see in Oakleys and other precision mechanical fitment. I was very wrong. I heard a POP! and my bars dropped. I spun them up in that flipped-10-speed antlers style and noodled across the intersection by the freeway to get out of traffic, then assessed my problem. I thought, at that moment, that the bolt had broken inside the stem, at the top of the clamp plate. I figured my best bet was to nurse it to camp and see if I could steal a stem bold from somewhere else. That was some dodgy riding, basically riding upright, holding the bars up for brakes. Guh. At camp, I soon realized that the stem itself had failed, internally. I went ahead and checked in, and while the gang rolled to the massive start, I headed over to the festival grounds, where Trek had a tent and some other vendors were setting up. Trek had no stems, and neither did anyone else. I got a lot of knowing, pained looks. The dark side to the two bolt stem, I’ll tell you. Finally, a vendor, I think at BiCi, noted that another vendor’s table had a box of stems on it, though the vendor was missing. He said he’d vouch for me, and so we pulled the stock open, and found a stem for me, and threw it on there. The vendor showed up, was supportive and awesome and said to hit him up later for it, and just like that, I was back in it. Quick stop at the Trek tent for some derailleur adjustment: everything looked great. I was good to go!

Team Mechanical

The ride is staged, so faster riders head out first to get out from behind everyone, then the rest are staged based on approximate experience level, so that like riders are with like riders, etc.

Eric, Kristin, her brother Donovan, and his girlfriend Sally rounded out our little group, and while we were initially heading out thinking that the worst was behind us, we were soon confronted with a freakish number of problems. Eric had a flat. He didn’t have a pump or adapter that could fit his valve properly. Different riders had different skill levels so pacing was dynamic. I stopped and stretched at each rest stop. More mechanicals. Ultimately, one of us self-assigned the name Team Mechanical. I had no idea how accurate it would be. We were joking how we never used the mechanical tent, barely ever stopped at the rest stops, etc.

Eric, Kristen and me: Team Mechanical

Wellllll….. anyway, we had sent Don and Sally up the road and were going to catch up once Eric was done with his thing. We ended up doing a pretty reasonable pace line to get back there, and stopped at the last rest stop before the big climb of the day. This was along the water, and the wind was picking up. Dark clouds were forming. Everyone said previous years were boiling hot and so on, but I thought we benefitted from the storm front, keeping us cooler and so on. I was having a great time.

Last generally pristine shot of Rogue. There’s some under-seatpost-binder scraping, and that dropout scraping from the night before, but otherwise, this was the honeymoon shot

I want to mention, the build was AWESOME. This new Cinelli frame worked out perfectly. With my bars adjusted to bring the brifters where they needed to be, the shorter frame, seat adjustments… I felt so comfortable. I can’t even tell you what a relief it was for my back and pelvis.

Grabbed the wrong bibs this morning, so a tiny hole in the upper thigh seam was growing. I safety pinned it For the TEAM’s safety, mind you.

And I had it dialed in. Unlike my last ride, I did everything right: I got a bit more sleep (almost 5 hours), I hydrated and fed well (even after two weeks of carb and sugar detox) and was humming with energy, Even my cough and my athsma weren’t holding me back. So, we embarked on the next leg, the big bad everyone was stressing about.

The steepest point on the Coleman grade…

The Coleman climb is remarkable not for its length or it’s overall height (it’s about 3 miles long and about 1200 feet of the 4000 feet aggregate for the day) but for the gradient. In the first third of the climb you hit gradients floating between 12 – 15%, topping out at 16.9% at one point. Recall that this was the section that I felt would force me off the fixed-gear had I brought it. I ended up taking the first third at a good pace, then pulled off at a convenient section after the big gradient, stretched my back and relieving the stress on the pelvis, and then resumed again, for the first time in the history of this cassette I put on Villain when I converted to SRAM, dropped into my 27 cog and just ticked the climb away at a steady, slow pace. We got to the top without stopping and I was justifiably elated. The night before, I didn’t have a bike to ride, was sick, had a back injury and poor saddle time; and now I had just done the big climb of the day. I was stoked.

Downhill From There

Over the top, Eric and Kristen were already descending and Donovan and Sally were now with me. Sally went on ahead, I think, and as I was descending, I rolled through the cassette to get into the smaller cogs and then flipped the big ring from the small to big. However, my shifting in the back wasn’t happening. In retrospect, I was going too fast, and didn’t wait to confirm that I was down to the saller cogs before shifting in front. I did it too close together and basically ended up doing the precisely WRONG thing for this build: I let the big ring in back (which hadn’t let go) line up with the big ring in front, and the derailleur locked up. I rolled backward on the cranks and tried to get back into the small ring, but by then it was too late: the rear mech blew up, sending it into the cassette and my rear spokes, the chain jammed up against the hub, and I was locked up in back. I can honestly tell you that all the fixed gear riding I do saved my ass. I was out of the saddle, hitting the front brake, and powerslid down to a stop in a lazy, jagged whip of rubber. I got out of the pedals and pulled off the road and was frankly just thankful i didn’t go down. Donovan came up and was eyeballing the mess behind me with a look that was like a cross between horror and queasiness. There was nothing to be done. I was out. I pulled the shattered derailleur pully cage out from being entwined in my cassette and it cut my fingers. The whole thing was just destroyed. A CHP moto cop rolled up and said that he’d get SAG support out for me, and then returned and said they would be here in about 10-15 minutes. So, I told Donovan to go on ahead and catch up with the others. They were going to catch a ride with him anyway, so I just figured I’d sag to the end, hop in the MINI, and jet home to my family. Off he went, and I hunkered down to wait as the wind whipped up and the temperature began to drop. Eventually another rides came walking down the hill with a Lightspeed and a broken chain. He had been waiting for SAG for an hour already. This wasn’t looking good.

Shot of the mangled derailleur hanger

I mean, this was pretty insane

The derailleur was wedged up into the cassette, and the hanger was up into the spokes. Amazing I didn’t go down. Wheel locked up. Longest skid-stop for my personal best, ha.

Eventually a fire volunteer rolled up in a big pick-up and agreed to take us back… but I mean BACK. Down the big climb, to the previous coastal rest stop. But hey, a ride’s a ride! And I was still riding out my euphoria about not crashing.

First ride back… literally, unfortunately.

At the rest stop, the wind was blowing and it was sprinkling. The word was that the SAG vehicles hadn’t been there in forever, and were not likely to be there. So, rather than sit on my ass, I thought, you know what, time for plan B. An awesome mechanic from Norcal Bike Sport, August, tore my rear derailleur ‘flower’ off and re pinned my chain shorter and we fashioned a single speed out of it. To hell with it. I’d ride as a single!

Derailleur and cables stripped away, ready to go single-speed.

The other guy got a chain fix and we were ready to head out, each with a crew farther along the course, sticking together out of convenience. He advocated taking an alternate route on the map. The ‘gravel route’ was designed to give riders an alternative to the Coleman grade. My concern was that it was unsupported, and it was gravel. Who knew what would happen, or how long my jury-rigged single would hold up. I didn’t want to be off the reservation. So he took off for that alternate route, and I headed along the coast and back to the big climb. I didn’t know it at the time, but while I was on the way back to the mechanical tent that second time, Levi Leipheimer had passed with his crew.

Chain Reaction

Here’s the new Single version of Rogue’s build… for a moment, anyway

PANG! There went the chain, just as I was getting started. So, I turned around, nursed the bike back to the previous rest stop, and returned to the mechanic who was sort of wide-eyed that I was back again. We shortened the chain further, now in a slightly easier gear (so bad on the flats) but not as easy as was needed on Coleman. I asked if he thought I’d make it. He shrugged and said he thought it was better than waiting at the rest stop for the SAGS that weren’t coming. So off I went for a third try. I got to the climb, hit it at a good pace, and was being pretty careful: I couldn’t stand out of the saddle, lest I stress the chain too much. And all the way up it was sort of the familiar refrain from Aids Lifecycle, as riders would double-take at the lack of derailleur. I was actually craving the MASH frame at this point. I don’t like single speed. I want the mechanical advantage of the fixed drivetrain. All my instincts were telling me to jump out of the saddle and bomb the hill as I would fixed, but I kept it steady. And I made it to about 50m from the top. PANG! There went the chain again. Now the link was twisted and two links back were open. I was done.

Second ride, this time to the next rest stop, ha

While I was at the top, I was trying to decide what to do, but I knew, either way, it was just going to be a matter of holding out until SAG support would eventually come. I was back in signal range for awhile so I texted Lung that I was out of the event and had a good story for him. I sent him blown derailleur flower pr0n. I thought I’d be hopefully getting home later that day and making up for my lateness with wifebot(tm)… but it was getting ugly, weather wise. Eventually a camera crew offered to give me a ride, which was awesome, so I put Rogue into the back of a truck for the second time in one day and hopped in. No crash, got a ride in, no worries! However, they elected to drop me off at the next rest stop a few miles up. I guess they were planning and picking someone else up before heading to base camp, so I took the ride for what it was and hopped out, joining a motley crew of injured riders at this water-only stop: a guy under a space blanket heaving from exhaustion and electrolyte overloading, and a woman who had cramped up. Guess what? It was a 4 hour wait.

The remains, alongside the medical tent. Lots of admirers of the frame (and the wreckage) though.

I mean, it was laughable. We could hear the radio going off: SAG vehicles were being rerouted BACKWARDS rather than coming forward and collecting to the end and back out again, as they should be. The rain was coming in from the coast, and there were crashes. More people were abandoning and the SAGs were picking them up on the side of the road. Even before all this, we passed four different accidents with ambulances etc. So it was an ugly day for riders down. We ended up hearing that three people were airlifted to hospitals, and it was getting worse. CRAZY! The woman took a space blanket, but I went without since I was otherwise doing OK. I just tucked into a ball and fed off of my energy gels and mini cliff bars. It sounds pathetic but it really wasn’t. I had signal so I texted my family. I even went to Amazon and ordered a replacement derailleur and chain. Ha. Oh, and Ethan Suplee, from My Name is Ed and Willfred, who we’ve written about previously on Team Lope, rolled through and looked great.

Ethan Suplee kicking ass.

One volunteer finally went off shift, and was able to take the vomiting guy, who was all gray and dead looking, down the hill (I heard her cry to the medics that he waspuking all over her Nissan though) and at another point, the woman I was sitting with got ahold of her husband, who tried to come get us (he had room for my bike, and they would take me to my car, even. Stoked!) Unfortunately, he was stuck behind the same traffic blocks that had closed the roads to everyone else, thanks to the healthy CHP support. After awhile it was raining on us. I got a text from wifebot(tm) showing young Zoe in a rickshaw in SF, saying I could use one of those right now. Truer words! Anyway, 4 hours later, a SAG vehicle rolled up. And behind them? a SRAM neutral car.

SRAM Steps Up

Finally, a SAG showed up, 4 hours later

I loaded my bike on the Sag van rack, and they said they had to wait for more calls before heading out. So I walked over and showed the tech driving it my derailleur flower, just because it was pretty crazy and he admitted it was one of the worst he’d seen. And then wham, he offered me a new one! I tole him I considered it pilot error, not defect. But he thanked me for being a SRAM customer, and suddenly I had a new derailleur.

SRAM to the rescue. This guy rocked

THAT is what I call another in a string of pretty amazing services on this ride, from the CHP support, to the amazing road crews, to the mechanics, to now this rad SRAM replacement. I was pretty delighted. And yes, I canceled the Amazon order in the van.

We ended up driving back along the route to collect more riders, and eventually were up to 6 riders in the van, before heading out to base camp. We rolled in a6 6:10pm, a good 6 hours after my second chain blow up.

I made it across the finish so my sensor could be read. I CARRIED the bike. The girls swooned. Trust me.

Over at the festival grounds, they just closed the beer tent at 6pm, so a lot of stragglers still coming in were fired up about the beer being gone, as it was presumably their carrots for getting home. However, I was driving anyway.

There were about 9 or 10 different food offerings at the festival, and riders each had a meal voucher. I chose, of course, the taco truck with the fit girl waiting in front of it.

Beer tent, closed 10 minutes prior. MAN people were steamed about that

I grabbed a delicious burrito, then headed out to walk the mile back to the car. Then I saw my original SAG van driver out front. I asked if she was heading my way, and she volunteered to drive me to the MINI! I was really thankful for this. It had been a long day. So I was in my car at 7pm. I got through Santa Rosa traffic and down to Mill Valley in a record 40 minutes (don’t ask don’t tell) and stepped in the door to give my daughter a bath at about 14 hours to the minute after I left that morning. CRAZY!

Oh it was delicious.

Now, I know this sounds like a tale of woe. But I felt pretty good about the ride!
Dig it:

- Incredible CHP support, with road closures and plenty of traffic blocks
- Volunteer support and crews that nearly rival Aids Lifecycle
- Great time riding with Eric, Kristen and Donovan, who I haven’t ridden with since spring I think, on a China Camp run where I was fixed and they were on road bikes, so this time I got to prove I actually HAD a road bike.
- Met Sally, Donovan’s girlfriend, a London import who was refreshing and generally awesome
- Got an extra ride in while wifebot(tm) was full-term. If you don’t have kids, you won’t understand how precious this was. I’m in the last three weeks before the baby is due, and that means staying close to home and scrambling with preparations and such.
- Went from having an ill-fitting carbon Look that hurt my pelvis to a PERFECTLY dialed in aluminum Cinelli and haven’t felt that comfortable on a road bike in years
- Pulled off a complete bike build in a few after-hours sessions after the toddler was sleeping
- dialed in my hydration, nutrition, and stretching and had pretty much no physical issues on the bike; no cramps, no athsma issues of concern, and in general, felt like I had much more saddle time under me than I had
- Got to drive a Fiat 500, the car I rented for wifebot(tm) to take Zoe to baby gym and her other stuff for the day
- Got a sweet, sweet carne asada burrito
- Replacement derailleur from SRAM
- All the damage was manageable so I’m on the road to repair very quickly: new chain coming, ordered a replacement derailleur hanger for the Cinelli thanks to the amazing website: www.derailleurhanger.com
- Fresh air and new ride routes
-Always reassuring when vendors, mechanics and staff go above and beyond, when we generally face selfish and hard people on our day to day ride experiences.
- Most important: I didn’t crash. I kept the bike up, never went down, and other than a minor strain in my left IT band, I’m in tip-top shape! Got to hold my daughter at the end of the day, so all was good!

Side note: one additional bonus was the use of that Cinelli. Not only is it gorgeous and did it elicit a number of comments from people having never seen it before, but guess what: I’m pretty sure I stayed off the ground because of it. The gouges in my rear triangle? Had this been my carbon Look I think i would have lost the triangle, wrecking the frame at minimum, going down far more likely. It was the first thing the SRAM tech asked about. Most blown derailleurs trash the frame when they fly up into the stays. I have cosmetic damage only. I don’t even think I lost a spoke. How awesome is THAT!

All in all, despite the calamities, it was a great day I say.

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The Do No Work Chainring

TRDL thom — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:15:00 +0000

Srsly.

http://fixthecity.es/post/9119276317/bi … g?804b1310

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chainwheel cufflinks

ironlung — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:47:53 +0000

YEP.

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The Frejus Fixie with the Hot Core

TRDL thom — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:30:32 +0000

I was reading an amusing note on boingboing, then was mired in senselessly bitter, judgmental anti-fixed-gear ranting in the comments of the piece, atypical for boingboing. One light in the dark, so to speak, was a post about the commenter’s fixie conversion, built off of a 60′s Frejus road bike. I followed over to David Forbes’ site, and marveled at the conversion. This is what it’s all about: not necessarily stripping a well-functioning road bike for no reason, as some detractors say, but rather giving new life to old gear and learning a fun, invigorating ride style in the process. His father lost the bike off the roof of their family wagon and the rear derailleur post collapsed. So the bike, now in the hands of the grown son, was converted to fixed-gear and enjoyed a new existence. Now, what I love, beyond the fact something that might have been landfilled is on the road today: he really scratch-built the hell out of it. Hand modified front chainring, handmade wheel, and my favorite detail in the bike’s evolution, an internally routed headlamp wiring assembly to batteries within the handlebar ends with a toggle in the bar end plug. SO AWESOME.

Sadly, nearly no one in that comment string bothered to read through and see that bike, as it was the absolute perfect counterpoint to all their whining. For me, the answer is even simpler:

HATERS GONNA HATE. No reason in this life to criticize the personal choices of others.

Anyway, great build, David!

http://www.nixiebunny.com/frejus/index.html

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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: Wrongbike – Strip!

TRDL thom — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 03:42:30 +0000

Forthwith, I present the next project.
WrongBike is dead, long live WrongBike!

What we’re calling Operation: Carpetbagger was supposed to begin with a strip-down of wrongbike. A bittersweet process, to be sure, but I was prepared. I had my mental and emotional fortitudes.

Yep, the fork was still effed up. Thats after a year of constant riding, and it hadn’t stretched a millimeter. I was prepared to retire it. For the Carpetbagger project, I’d need easy wheel removal.

Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t getting the front wheel off that was the hardest, but rather the seatpost. If you saw how much work it took to get this thing IN there in the first place (Thatswhatshe….) anyway, lots of lube and it was out.

Here we are, wheels stripped, one crank off, working on the rest of the drivetrain…

And the deed was done.

I was bit twice that day: once by wrongBike’s resentful chainring, and once by Villain’s derailleur, just sort of hovering around the fight, and holding me while wB delivers liver blows… metaphorically.

Finally, I present the only TRUE Ghostal in the stable.

Next up, reincarnation!
But wait! Here’s an update: I’ve come to subsequently find that wrongBike’s old frame (A Vista, go read the original bike build notes) is of soft metal and cheap lugging… on the advice of our expert framebuilder, I’ve desided to abort the plan to make wrongBike INTO Carpetbagger. One upside is that I get to build up a fresh frame for that project. The other is that I get to keep wrongBike and it’s glorious nuclear yellow/orange cheddar color for more sweet, sweet ridery!

So, in the end, what we have here is a probably much needed overhaul and maintenance check on wrongBike before reassembly. HA! Stay tuned…

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