This ride was built up by Focale 44 as a polo bike, and while I don’t yet play bike polo, not intentionally anyway, there’s a lot I like here. Normally I don’t like high spoke counts but there’s something about the proportions of the spokes to the wheels to the frame that is pretty neat. I like the setback seatpost and understand contextually why they did it. Whenever I see some of these theoretically bombproof polobike parts, like those chainring armors, I always wonder if they really work. I know Lung in his BMX days surely tested same.

http://www.cycleexif.com/focale-44-polo-bike

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. MKE polo fork is really original
2. bike polo rules sequence
3. Two of My Favorite Things!

Following up on Ironlung’s take on the MASH BLOG with chas, here’s my answers, same. Because I KNOW you were holding your breath…

~~~

what do you ride? (can be your stable or just one bike)
+ I’m enjoying the embarrassment of riches out here in Mill Valley of having enough room int he shop to have several bikes on hand, for science. When we were moving out of the loft in SF, we almost took a condo in Larkspur that had NO bike storage at all. I was going to be down to two bikes: one at the office, one at home somehow, and roate them out on legs of the commute. But as it turned out, I got a bike shop space as large as the house, almost, so I have hooks up and bikes hanging thereon, and even hoteling station hooks for my man Lung.
+ 01 Wrongbike: a fixed, converted 70s Vista, now yellow/orange wrongrobot color, with arc bars and gumwalls.
+ 02 Crook Type 3: a green/white 2010 Cinelli x MASH frame build-up based on the gray version that I rode Aids Lifecycle on, but now with bullhorns
+ 03 Villain: my first all-in road bike build based on a LOOK KG381 Team from the 2003 Tour de France, currently employing SRAM Rival components for the most part.
+ 04 Ye Blacke Death: an old late 60s Mixte frame now converted to a fixed cargo bike, with moon bars, wood fenders, knobby tyres, a front cargo rack and a front seat for my daughter, Wee Z.
+05 Ghostal: a new-parts build fixie based on an Origin 8 frameset, done in all white with chrome, for science. Not for death. This one is being stripped back down and partially sold.
The rest have either been gifted to friends, or are in use by others, or have been stripped for sale. See, I’m condensing!

how long have you been riding and what started you?
I rode a kids bike as a kid, but no romantic tale of me hurtling along with streamers and a #3 emblazoned on my glitter-tee or anything. In Junior High I started riding a KHS mountain bike around town for the same reasons Lung described: getting outta dodge. That was stolen in early High School, and I upped to my first road bike, a heavy as lead Nishiki which I learned to ride properly for distance despite it’s entry-level, again heavy as LEAD nature. I rode my first event rides on it, my first two day ride, and so on. I mashed the HELL out of that thing, so much so that on a climb in one of the event rides, I bent the teeth on the big chainring. Tells you both the quality of the steel used on that component, and the wrongness involved: I was big gear mashing to catch someone up a hill, which today i would have more sense that to do (assuming I had ANY gear choices at hand)… That guy expired and was abandoned when my parents moved, but I was in college at that point, riding a mountain bike, as it was windy and hilly and I was more interested in off road hurtling and alcohol consuming than distance endurance efforts. I upgraded to a much better, aluminum mountain bike when I first moved to SF, but after a few years, while I DID enjoy the shock absorption and relative hardiness while plowing through all the glass and shrapnel on Oak street, I longed for the road bike days of my youth. I bought a 2000 Bianchi Veloce, my first real road bike of relative quality (still consumer level, but with better components and racing geometry) and rode that through all the events and years of commuting before selling it to my man Lung after I had upgraded to my first pro-grade Look. From there, it got out of hand, as events conspired to force me to re-evaluate the one bike for all rides mentality, and Lung taught me to wrench.

do you wear a helmet and why or why not?
Absolutely. I ride all my ‘real rides’ with a helmet, as I do my commutes. I also admit I irrationally forego it on short jaunts to coffee while at work, or similar, but there’s no logic to that. I don’t believe helmets make you a safer rider. But I do believe they protect you THAT MUCH MORE, so why not, right. Definitely has proven a life-saver for me at least three times in my life where I’ve seen the split helmet foam.

favorite shop? why?
Too many, too many. Like Lung, it’s my own bike basement. But also locally, it’s Tam Bikes. I like the pedigree and eccentric selection at Bike Odyssey, but I know the guys at Tam Bikes, so. In SF, I prefer American (fixed side)…

clip or clipless?
I rode, at one point, SPD and Speedplay and Look clips… but now I condensed to all SPD to give me the most flexibility, even though it’s my least favorite system. Some of my townie fixies have half-and-half pedals, SPD on one side, platform on the other.

ride with headphones?
exclusively.

sponsors or teams/gangs/clubs you are a part of?
http://www.teamlopetyreclubbe.com is our life’s blood, ride crew wise. Team Lope started as Jeff Muadib Marks and I, in event rides and centuries we would do together. Then Lung got in on it and it evolved from just being the name used on group road rides, and became a way of life, seriously. Build it yourself, modernize it, give it a new use, funkify it, avoid style rules, push your limits and have fun riding. And anyone in the Bay Area that wants to ride with us, let it be known and come along. In 2011 we’ll be posting notice of our planned rides so you can hop aboard appropriately. We have some local riders who’ve expressed interest in joining us on the road, and we love it. Almost as much as we love taking climbs with roadies who stare at us. Heh.

fav. race?
I’ve never raced. I’ve always pursued my personal best, of course. Every commute ride is a time trial, every road ride where there’s a rider somewhere up ahead means I’m in 2nd place and need to catch them. But overall, never done crits or anything. I enjoy watching professional road racing, though the politics, business and scandal of the sport hurts the vibe. Tole you what though, if we had a velodrome, I’d give it a go.

fav. place to ride or route(s) in SF ?
Tough one, same. I really enjoyed my commute because it was all water’s edge, had climbs, and was beautiful, both in scenery and people-watching, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. My favorite city riding memories are the weekend morning noodles with Lung, takin it ‘teazy, having a cup of coffee, doing dorky bike errands. My favorite roads to ride, anywhere, though are where the trees overhang on either side and create long arched vaults of dappled lighting, and you have some undulation in the road. Good stuff.

fav. person(s) to ride with?
i prefer to ride alone, but of course my boy Lung.
As I’ve gotten older, and family life has taken a stronger grip on my social time AND free time, I’ve especially looked forward to group rides as a way to get the band back together in the first place.

dope chill spot?
Coffee shop! But only at the beginning of a real long ride, not in the middle. I’m looking at you Eric.

why SF (lung edit : you can put your own city, but just specify it)?
I love SF. Other cities I’ve enjoyed riding were Paris, Seattle, Dusseldorf.

what do you do for work?
Architect by day, comic artist by night [ http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com ]

best and worst thing(s) about riding in SF?
Honestly, it’s not SF specific but cultural: I love riding where I live, where there are a great number of diverse riders on the road, lots of choices of route, lots of funky rides to be inspired by, and enough of a rider presence to give us some leverage politically in local legislative issues. On the other hand, the sword cuts both ways: I strongly dislike riders with elitist attitudes, riders who ride 3 wide and block traffic, riders who ride so unpredictably that car drivers grow angry, and trouble makers who happen to be on bike. All these come with the territory when you are in a bike city. And regardless of what Portlandia posits, cities like ours may have a plethora of tall bikes and fixies and fun bikery going on, but we’re still at the mercy of aggressive drivers, and that’s always the biggest dampener on my riding pleasure. So any ride that goes off without conflict is a treat! I aim for those!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TLTC Ride Report: ALC9 – Wrongrobot
2. Bike Build Process Log: Fix-e 3.0
3. Bike Build Process Log: Rapscallion – Live Load Test Ride

I mean, it’s not for my project, but cool idea, custom chainrings etc. Bet it looks cool in motion…

I can see a Team Lope Bike Grrrl rocking that. Or Cyclomania.

http://www.shopcandycranks.com/

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Grrls: Vancouver Casual
2. Team Lope Bike Grrl – Lookback
3. sweet georgia brown’s blog – give her some internet love!

How about a custom chainring from Fixymatosis? This should spice up future builds…

http://urbanvelo.org/fyxomatosis-m-i-a- … hainrings/

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. DIY chainring bolt tool
2. The Do No Work Chainring
3. Surreal Chainring Gallery

Well, Ye Blacke Death is finally finished! Finished in the since, of course, that it rolls and pedals and steers and mostly stops, not that there’s not much more to do. But this was the day that I was able to get it rolling and do some tests. Any build, I’m secretly relieved when it doesn’t explode on it’s maiden voyage. Weirder frames and pieces parts and I wonder a little more about that result. I wasn’t going to throw wee Z on here and hurtle down the hill, but I did want to get out and see what needed adjustment and how it held up.

As you can see, it came together pretty nicely. The bobike fits on a a bracket that seats on the quill, and is removable in under 7 seconds. You can pull the clamp off as well and it’s like it was never there, or leave the clamp on and use the cotter pin to remove the seat. Even on the bike, there’s no interference with the front rack.

The combination of matte black, laquered wood, leather and chrome work well together. It has an old timey vibe, but some new school details. More interestingly to me, it’s the most frankenbike build I’ve done, even more than Fix-e was, and it doesn’t LOOK like it. I think it looks like it rolled new off the assembly line of one of your vintagy commuter bike shops.
Most importantly, it came together how I envisioned it, with the black rims and knobbies, the little gleams on the chrome, the general geometry…

Wee Z even helped with spoke tension inspection. Not at speed.

So, what’s left: well, a lot. Some adjustments are required before it can really do what it was intended to do. See, I tried to hop on it and almost became a eunuch. The Bobike is low and back, so you cradle your precious cargo in your arms as you ride. But for most bikes, that means interference with your riding position. I could get between the seat and the Bobike, but I couldn’t get UP onto my seat. Absolutely no-go if there was a child up in there.

I was sort of resigned to the idea that maybe the seat wouldn’t work out (it was designed for upright commuters in Denmark with adjustable stems and that vertical clearance) and that I’d be putting the rear rack on. But I did some research last night and was reminded, thanks to www.longleafbicycles.com why i got my long quill stem in the first place. I was going about this the wrong way: I thought the clearance problem would be the seat being too much in my face, so I was pushing it farther and farther down the stem, to no avail. As it turns out, it needs to be HIGHER, which is counter-intuitive, I have to admit. That’s where the ginormous stem came in. So this morning, I raised the seat high on the stem (didn’t yet actually increase stem height) and equally-as-important, lowered the SEAT. It made all the difference, and it worked. AWESOME.

Another issue is the brake. I’m a mile from where I started: I have sticky salmon pads, a new center-pull caliper, and I spent a LOT of time stringing and restringing it, which is made more aggravating with this vintage of equipment because of having to use double- wrenches on the hanger nuts. I was too weak in stopping power on my test ride, which was after about three stringings already… and then I adjusted it and am now too tight, so i need to let out about 3mm of cable. But I’m close.

The cork handles, which were kind of an experiment anyway, were 50/50. One went on great, and one shredded like you’d expect thin, true cork to do. Wifebot(tm) suggested glue but i don’t think it’ll hold together very long, so if I keep using these, I’ll be replacing one.

The bars, which LOOK rad, once again may not work, just as has happened on my other rides.

The sweep brings you too far forward, and I think I’ll interfere with comfortable positioning when Z is on there. So i may have to switch to sway, or boulevard, bars. I’ll be looking at that tonight.

Lastly, when I set out on the test ride, I was like DAMN this is a bitch. What is UP. The gearing was higher than I anticipated. I discovered the culprit. Remember how I was messing around with different combinations of cranks and chainrings? I ended up going with a 53, not the 39 I started with. Makes a teeeny bit of difference.

I calculated the inchgear at a gruesome 101. GAH.

I’m putting a 20 on the back tonight, getting it back down to my comfortable low-70s.

All in all though, very exciting and satisfying day.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Rubber Side Down
2. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – More Prep Work
3. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Over the Moon

Crook Type 3 is a transformed version of Crook, the Cinelli Mash I built up and rode on Aids Lifecycle 9, from SF to LA. The concept was simple, and absurd: after completing the 570 mile ride (if successful, which it was) I would swap out the gray frame that made that journey for the limited edition green/ white variant, celebrating the achievement. You can read about the build process for Crook Type 3 here. Suffice to say, I kept the bottom end from the original Crook, and replaced the top end, going with a silver dip theme above the frame line.

Cinelli Mash 09 Limited Edition Green/White Adidas-inspired variant
SRAM Courier 300 Cranks (48/165)
Shimano A520 pedals
Custom wheelset: Soma hubs laced to H+Son 43s
Sugino Track Cog system (17) (Currently 75 inchgear)
SRAM single chain
Dia Compe brake/ carbon fiber cable housing
Paul Comp cross lever, silver
Titanium spacers
Columbus headset and seatpost clamp
Thomson Elite post, silver
Thomson X2 stem, silver
Nitto RB-021 compact bullhorns
VO elkhide wrap
crankbolt wrap caps (!)
Brooks Swallow saddle, honey
Thomson stem cap
Continental Gatorskin Hardshells 25c
Awesomeness

Here’s the build in the wild…

Note the Paul Comp cross lever. That was a hard find, with a deceptively simple solution: Order direct from Paul Comp…
The elkhide is still stretching and getting comfy but it’s gorgeous. I miss gel padding, though. Crank bolts for bar ends. HA!

The gold hub works nicely with the color scheme, which was fortuitous. I’ll eventually have a brass bell on the front end too.

Sneaky inclusion of my Three-Pin rider logo under the chainring, for science.

On Crook 1.0 there was a quote here: ‘by hook or by crook’ which was my inspirational mantra for getting through ALC on a fixed-gear. Now that that was done, I elected to retire it, moving the bike name from the head tube to the usual position here. The cog decal moved from seatpost to seat stay. Oh, and there will be a pinup girl on the nose, it’s just not done. The other missing decals are a Type 3 lettering piece for the name, and a vinyl of our ALC logo used on our ride shirts.

Some adjustments will follow, in seat height and stem. But so far, it’s a greeeaaaaat rahde!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Crook Type 3 Conversion
2. The Original Crook Type 1 Reports In
3. Crook Type 3: On the Road

In this brief installment of the Ye Blacke Death build logs, I messed with rings, and installed other things.

My challenge, as I showed Lung over the weekend, was that the bottom bracket spindle that I have on this build is too short. I COULD just get a longer spindle, but what fun is THAT. So I frankenbuilt the drivetrain. I spent a lot of time, too much time, playing with chainrings. I started by pulling the middle and small rings off of the crankset that came ont he old Vista that became wrongBike(tm) but this led to the discovery that the chainring bolts were too long, even with a huge amount of spacers. And, additionally, one was stripped and took some effort to get it out. Then I went after the Campy cranks I had in the shop, pulled the two rings off of those to get at the shorter bolts, to use on the Vista cranks… but once I did so, and installed the assembly on the frame, I discovered the short spindle. So, off came the ring for the third time, and the Campy crank was reassembled, with a single 53 chainring. This went on fine, but the corresponding non-drive crank arm hit the frame. Through experimentation, I found that the Vista’s crank arm didn’t, so now i have a Campy right side and a Vista (Suntour) left side. Done!

i sure know my way around quickly pulling chainrings, between the Miche cranks and now these.

This is the Bobike seat that’s going on the front of Ye Blacke Death, right above the back of the front rack. It’s a trick little system. I MAY get a windshield for it, but we’ll see how that pans out. I set out this past weekend, on a Daddy/Wee Z day, to get some installation done on the project, and my intention was to get fenders, rack and seat up on there. Each gave me problems but I saw what needed to be done to solve them. The seat clamps to the stem, necessitating that tall Nitoo Techntronic stem, but I need to get the rack on first. The rack wants to go on after fenders, of course, so that made fenders the next in line.

I was installing in the carport, as an experiment while the cat was away. I put wee Z in the pack and Tole, and she was good for about an hour, so that was actually pretty AWESOME. It’s not the first time I’ve wrenched with her hanging out: I’ve done a number of projects upstairs on the back desk with her in the sandbox. That requires bringing the stand, the bike parts and all the tools upstairs, which is kind of a pain, so I wanted to try the carport this time.

You can see I got the fenders out, there. These are from Woody’s Fenders. Amazing build quality, hand-crafted goodness. I subsequently got them on the bike. Not complete, though. The rear needs to have an L-bracket drilled into the wood, and the front has a bigger issue: seating a front brake securely on the fork, on which the fender also hangs. I need a longer bolt. So there’s that. But progress all the same. You can kind of see, from this shot, some of how it’s coming together. Lung saw it a little farther along and up close.

Getting closer!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Gamoh Go!
2. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Rubber Hits Road
3. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Over the Moon

After Aids Lifecycle, I did a moderate overhaul, ie. drivetrain cleanup and brake inspection, and a surface cleaning of the bike, to return it to it’s former shiny self. Gorgeous I says!

I still quite like the ‘Crook’ placement above the Mash crest. That worked out nicely with the die- cut vinyl.

Here’s a shot of the Team Lope crest on the downtube. Kind of a subtle place for it, I think.

One noticeable scar from the road: a rock chip on the wheelstay. I think this was probably from when one of those pacelines passed in the middle of traffic at 40mph sending us into the gravel. You guys were really fast and cool and stuff.

Here’s that scrape from the chainring moving back up IN there. Fortunately, it’s an aluminum frame so no worries. And on close inspection, many of my bikes have this scrape, either from the chainring or a chain scrape along the way. Badge of honor…

There’s that Three-Pin name plate, along with a shot of the bike’s signature quote:

"By hook or by crook"

What’s really cool is that on the opposite side the lettering is partially worn off as if from age. Gives it some flavor.

That sweet cog reflector sticker. Nice touch on the black seatpost.

Ah, Crook. Ya done me well.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Strippery!
2. Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3
3. Ghostal: Notes from the Underworld

This is another inchgear calculator app. Now, I like mine just fine, and it’s quite powerful. No disputing this one is aesthetically pleasing, though, no doubt.

However, I love the copy:

"How many inches are you pushing?

We’ve all been there. The dude/t isn’t taking the hint despite the fact that you’ve used "interesting", "stock" and "just like the manufacturer made it" to describe the bike in question. You suspect that the tiny chainring and huge cog yield some wimpy drivetrain, and in the days before Chainvetica you couldn’t be sure. Now you can.

Chainvetica does the math your PBR addled brain cannot. Given the tooth count of your chainring and cog, it calculates gear inches — an ancient formula designed to sum up just how hard it’s going to be turn over the cranks on your fixed gear. The more inches you’re running, the harder it is to push. Use it to pick your cog. Use it to quantify the power of your massive quads.

As an added bonus, Chainvetica also calculates your speed at a cadence of 90 rpm. Your skinny jeans will make 90 rpm exactly "as fast as you can pedal" so basically, this app also calculates your ride’s top speed without all the bourgeois cables and stuff.

All this functionality presented on a bed of orange and Helvetica. Good stuff.

(Does this work with SS mountain bikes? 27c tires? 650c wheels? Kilometers per hour? First of all: yuck. Secondly, we’re working on that.)"

Dude, if I were a hipster urban cyclist with an iPhone, I’d be like ‘Sweet! Wait. What?’

Piss being taken WHILE item being sold!
ha

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chainvet … 6126?mt=8#

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain- The Magic Gear
2. Bike Build Process Log: Fix-e 3.0
3. Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3

OK, now that I’m back from Aids Lifecycle, it’s project time! What’s life without projects, I ask? Well, a projectless life, certainly, but anyway, onward…

I have four concurrent bike projects underway, and this is the first report from those efforts. It’s time to frankenbuild Villain 3.0!

You may recall I have two Look KG381 frames, my favorite vintage of my favorite road bike frame. One is the KG381 Team (one of the team spares from the 2003 season) and one KG381 Jalabert Edition, which was the special edition consumer model.

The Ja-Ja is currently built up as my road bike, with the Dura Ace groupo from that year, good to go. Note the saddle upturn was a joke, please.

The other frame was built into my first carbon road bike fixed gear conversion, Villain. Villain made it through two iterations, before being retired. I partially cannibalized it to form the drivetrain for Crook, my Cinelli MASH build, but also, it was struggling under the burden of the fixie conversion with a very high inchgear. So the thing needed an overhaul anyway, and the frame suffered some minor damage when the damn Miche flangeless bottom bracket worked it’s way inward, allowing the chainring to strike the wheelstay.

Between the two frames, the Ja-Ja is immaculate, and the Team frame is a little weathered: some sticker damage, some chips and that scrape I mentioned. But I LOVE the black bare carbon look.

So, Villain 3.0 is a fusion of these two rides. I’m attempting to pull everything off of the Ja-Ja road bike and put it on the Team bike, swapping out parts here and there, and building up a more subtle road bike as a result, then selling the Ja-Ja frame. it’ll be sad to see it go, as I love it so, but while I DO have many bikes in the stable, I bristle at an unused frame hanging there, and Villain in it’s fixie incarnation wasn’t necessary any longer.

So the first step is dissembly of Villain. Not too hard, given I gave his wheels to Raully Raul when I built up Fix-e for him, and I had already stripped the cranks off for Crook. But I pulled the bottom bracket, took the bars off, and cleaned the frame inside and out, noting no noticeable thread damage to the shell, which is good. Good bye, Villain headbadge! (don’t worry, replacement is already made)

I’m keeping some of the Villain gear. I love the Thomson X2 stem, and will be reusing that in lieu of the Ja-Ja FSA stem. I also prefer a few other small gifts from Villain that will make it over.

Not much more to see. I started taking Ja-Ja apart, but this is a slower process, because I’m going part by part, transferring the group over to the Villain frame. I’ve never built up a road bike, so I’m trying to be methodical about the transfer. That said, the best WhytheFace moment was then I pulled the Ja-Ja bars and unclipped the brake and so on and tried to lift it away and sprannnnnnng, it bounced out of my hand, because… you know… it’s cabled to the frame in three other places, hahahahaha. Shows I’ve been working on fixed gears for too long.

Anyway, fohhhhwahd! I have the service diagrams for the Dura Ace group (gah!) and all I have left to procure is a replacement derailleur cage from my recent calamity, and I think I’ll be good to go. Oh, I should mention, new tyres. I LOVE the red slicks but Villain isn’t a red tyre bike.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Completeds
2. Bike Build Process Log: Villain- Ergo Post, Bars and Coggery
3. Bike Build Process Log: Villain- Yes Brake

« More Current — Less Current »