So the fun thing about Rapscallion, my toddler toting cargo fixie, is that I can transform it into a pretty reasonable flyer in a very short period of time. I realized I never posted what that was about, so here we are.

The Gomoh front rack is secured by two bolts in the base of the rack, attaching to a mount that runs behind the brake calipers, and then two bolts that secure it to the forks down by the wheel. Pop, pop, pop and pop. It’s off. Mounting bracket remains. You could put a rusty auger bit on this if you wanted to scare any cyclist-mauling ambulances.

The baby seat is held onto a mounting plate by two long pegs that are further secured by a cotter pin. I leave the mount on, and remove the seat quick-snap. The mounting plate is of a spacer type so it sits on the steerer. I considered quickly removing it too, the first time I did this, but was lazy about it. Now, I look at the plate as a forgiving object when smashed into, compared to the isolated spacer stack on the tall steerer when it’s absent, if one were to, oh, I don’t know, skid like a silly fool.

It’s not glamorous, but man it feels light. Partly this is because of contextual awareness: I’m so used to this thing having 20 pounds of rack and 30 pounds of daughter on the front wheel. So freed from that, it zips. Frankly, the one complaint I have is that it’s not fast enough, because it has a 20 cog on there, designed for that normal loading.

So one of the main reasons I took this bike out this way yesterday was that it was raining, and this doubles as my rain bike. But also, I wanted to see if I could start expanding my skidding beyond the comfort zone of the bulls on Crook. I’m happy to report a few observations:

- I can skid off risers, though not as easily yet as bulls. Though, when I put my mind to it, I found it pretty easy to get forward.
- I can skid on SOMA Everwears MUCH easier than my bulletproof Gatorskins. This stands to reason, as the gators are textured and grippy, and the Everwears are softer rubber, and well regarded for skidding anyway. But my first time comparing, so wow.
- The unwinding bottom bracket cup has not renewed it’s pernicious unwinding since I took it home and got up IN there. We’ll see.

Anyway, transformations! And yes, in Stay Limber Mode, this is called RapscalLean.

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1. Team Lope Bike Bio: Fix-e
2. Bike Build Process Log: Rapscallion – Live Load Test Ride
3. Team Lope Ride Report – You CAN Take it With You

Continued on my unfortunate unwinding of the Sugino carrier system on Crook from too much skiddage, I took the wheel off and did some forensics over the weekend. I should have had a martini, but anyway.

In the photo up top, we see typical threads of a used fixed wheel. Just as a reference point, not of new threads, but typical threading after say 300 miles of non-skidding riding. Nice and clean.

Here’s my threads after I got the carrier off of the Crook wheel. That was it’s own problem: I couldn’t get the lockring off. It spun between hard and easy arcs of a revolution without unscrewing. I finally got it off by introducing a handy awl punch under it while turning, and it popped off. LOTS of thread threads. Messy.

After a wipe-down, the problem was clear: no threads. I don’t know whether the unwinding carved it smooth or what, but those threads are GONE.

So, bad news for my hub, my sweet, sweet gold hub that got me to LA.

But good news for the resale value of my Sugino Keirin carrier system. Here the carrier and lockring are on another wheel, tight as a drum. No thread damage on either!

So, you know, if anyone needs some sweet, sweet Sugino action, let a brother know.

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I’ve been riding Crook Type 3, my Cinelli X MASH, for about three weeks straight, as I’ve been enjoying my new-found and late-coming skill of skidding around town like a dork. Plus, I’ve been getting great workouts in on the way to work by climbing up into the hills around Mt. Tam. Everything counts! Normally I rotate between bikes when commuting to the office, for science, but I’ve been locked in to one ride lately just fine-tuning my comfort level with everything I’ve been screwing with, ending in a preposition.

Well, after I unwound my lockring one too many times and effed up the threading on my sweet, sweet gold all-city hub, Crook is momentarily grounded. I thought about swapping out a wheel from another bike, even one of my spares, but then I figured it was a reasonable excuse to get out on another bike and start practicing skidding around in other ride positions. Took awhile, but I got some modest successes with Carpetbagger this morning (my S&S Coupler enabled travel bike)… not the same degree as with Crook, but it doesn’t have the bulls I’ve been relying on to get forward…

Anyway, it’s always sad to see one of my bikes dismantled, and at the moment, I have several: Crook is wheeless, Wrongbike is mid-overhaul, Rapscallion is grounded pending resolution of that mysterious BB cup unwind issue…

Projects!

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If you know me, you know I’m a dork about my end caps. I have arcade game buttons on Rogue (formerly on Crook during Aids Lifecycle) and until some youth stole em, crank bolts on Crook Type 3. So, this time, my experiment was arcade switches for back of house panel work. At the moment, what they do is a mystery. Some have speculated lights, oil slicks, caltrops and the like. I won’t say. One guy I passed on Camino Alto yesterday stared at me sort of stunned when I flipped the rightmost switch as I overtook him. Hilarious.

I rode the Cinelli X MASH to my in-laws last week for birthday shenanigans for a family member…

All the kids, my Wee-Z included, were all over these switches. I tole her nephew in law, after he switched it, ‘DONT MOVE! Stand perfectly still!!!’ and then every slowly cautiously reached over, switched it back, and exhaled. He had bug eyes.

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I finally felt comfortable swapping out my front rim over the weekend on Crook Type 3, my Cinelli X MASH build. My previous black H+Son rim had a solid bare aluminum braking surface from that 12 mile descent on ALC 09, and it always bugged me, so I got a spare wheel to replace it, but was waiting until I started skidding to swap them out, in order to at least by some degree reduce the braking needs. So yay, I do the swap while I was changing some flats on other bikes, and lo, it looks sick. So, I ride in and am practicing skidding and apparently got some grit on the brake pads because I have fine streaks of color being removed. HA. Serves me right for all that vanity.
I thought maybe my brakes were toeing in but I adjusted them and the same occurred.

Oh well! At least the steerer was cut down and it’s a much safer, and once again sweet looking ride.

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This pic is actually about a week old, but since I was up climbing over the hill again this morning on Crook Type 3, I was again reminded that I need to get some time set aside to finally commit to the slammed stem position. I’ve spent about 6 months now gradually decreasing the stack on this bike, with the intention of adjusting to the lower reach slowly enough that my back/pelvis recovery wouldn’t be adversely affected. I really like it now, so I need to get this spleen-killer off of the front end of this thing.

Great ride morning: cold but not frigid, energy stores despite only having coffee, burning legs and chest after getting to the summit… what a great way to get to work!

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You may recall that some months back, I came out of Peet’s, and discovered that some hooligan had stolen my bar ends off of Crook Type 3, My CinelliXMASH. Not the bike, which was unlocked. But the bar ends. I had used sweet black crank bolts. You never know, right?

Anyway, yesterday, I stopped about two blocks from where Peet’s is, to tie my perpetually untying Sambas (even with double knots)… and I spotted something in the foliage by the sidewalk.

YEP. One of my stem bolts, still wrapped with electritole tape, now rusted from exposure.
That’s a trip. The hooligans abandoned them after the theft. And trippier still, I found one.

Crazy.

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Readers not suffering from short-term memory lost (and now traveling the streets of their unfamiliar neighborhood with tattoos of their grocery lists ont hem looking for payback for a murder they aren’t sure even happened) will recall that in preparation for the Levi Leipheimer Gran Fondo, I cobbled together a road bike the night before, and then had it explode on the ride.

You can read that ride report here. I called it the Gran Fondo Fireball.

After locking up the rear derailleur on the way down from the biggest climb of the ride, I was left with this:

And this:

Now, SRAM was a sponsor of the ride, and the local rep actually pulled up and gave me a new used rear derailleur, so I was at least not re-buying that part. With a baby imminent, my shoppe time is next to zero, so in order to get the bike going again, I dropped it off at Performance for a derailleur tune and more importantly a safety check. Right out of the gate, I forgot my new 10-speed chain i had purchased, so I was going to be picking that up there. They noted that the derailleur hanger that I had acquired from derailleurhanger.com was not correct. My frame seller was able to work with BTI and figure out the required part, and I had that shipped from the always sweet-as universalcycles.com. So, back to the shop for a second time, to replace the wrong hanger with the right hanger (this brings the famous ‘no wirrre hangerrrrs!’ to mind)… anyway, they thought they’d be able to finish the bike that day.

Late in the day report: not going to make it, some issue needing more time the next day, a Saturday. That wasn’t promising.

Late Saturday, same call. Even less promising. Understand, when I brought it in, I hadn’t done a THOROUGH inspection due to my family situation. But it looked like there wasn’t significant frame damage, and since the only substantial damage I saw was the hanger, I was hoping they’d be able to do a quick review for safety issues (one drawback to aluminum: when it cracks, it’s over) string the rear derailleur back up, and call it a day.

Then I got a call Monday that things were ‘very bad’. Fortunately, I feared this meant the frame was a loss, but in fact, not THAT bad. But the cassette was trashed, the spokes were jacked, the rim was creased, and some other smaller issues. I was kind of disappointed, because it was not my plan, when I built the new bike, to be frankensteining it with a bunch of new parts. However, it was what it was. I did a little price-checking, then authorized them to swap out a new SRAM 10-speed cassette (this time 12-27, so i lost the range of the old one at the bottom (in other words, the old one was a custom set-up from 11 to 27, giving me a great big AND little cog, with less steps between the two) and went in on new wheels. I could have had the old rear wheel respoked, but it was a cheapie from several years ago, and not really worth the labor and materials. Plus, the bearings on the front were getting choppy. So what the hell.

Picked it up, and it was as good as new. Better than before, actually, thanks to the much, much lighter new wheelset.

I was actually kind of overwhelmed with it last night after I picked up the bike. I was frustrated. I’m no regretter, as you may know from my posts, but I was starting to think, you know, had I listened to to my wife’s bad feeling that I shouldn’t build the bike for the ride etc, that this wouldn’t have happened. I’d have taken Crook Type 3, bombed that ride on a fixie (except for walking up that 16% gradient) and had a great ride, instead of sitting in the rain waiting for SAG for hours, damaging a new frame, destroying pretty much everything that wasn’t already new… at a time when I needed to manage costs.

Then I did some course correction: I suspect I might have had a calamity anyway, at some point. My chain was one link short, based on the discrepancy between SRAM tech notes and the install guides (the difference between one link being one outer and one inner, or just one outer OR one inner, as I thought it was) so there was going to be trouble when it chained big to big, which would happen eventually, despite my efforts. There’s some question about what failed when in the damage… the cassette may have already been bent in the biggest cog, from my previous problems having strung Villain together and riding that for a year. Anyway, it was sub optimal, and when it collap, it collap BIG. At the time, I fixie skided to a stop on a descent. But had it been the crabon frame, I’d very likely have lost the rear triangle, judging by the marks all over the back of the Cinelli and the damage to the wheel. I’d have gone down AND lost the frame. So, while the escalating repairs were unexpected and unfortunate, and the fact that I felt it better to let them keep whacking at it rather than sit on it in the shop for a few months and then start messing with it later, at least it was throughly vetted. And now it’s very rideable. In fact, better than ever.

But it was just hard in that way it’s always hard when you can point to a decision and think, had I not done that, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Even if that isn’t really true. With my first Look theft, and even with Lung’s lock-the wheel-without-the rear-triangle thing, sure they were errors but we had false expectations of security in each case. No sense in regretting that. Each led to newer, bigger, better builds.
So, in the end, this calamity COULD have ended in serious injury and worse damage, instead of ending in a sweet, sweet bike.

PS Zoe tried to pick out yet another wrongrobot-approved ride for herself. I said ‘now you have 3 bikes already. Only Daddy needs a stable of 8 bikes. It’s excessive.’ to which she broke into a toddler wail. Pretty funny, being commentary both on her bike denial AND on my excessive rides.

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There’s this wonderful moment in the wonderful film Anchorman, comprised itself of back-to-back wonderful moments, where Ron Burgundy has thrown a delicious and filling burrito out the window while driving, where it struck a Harley guy in the face and sent him sprawling. The Harley guy, Jack Black with a beard and beans on his face, begins his assault with:

‘What the hell, man!"

In a very specific low-key cadence.
I tend to use this whenever I’m struck dumb with the strange bullshit behavior of others, or self.

Today, after a stop off at the bank and at Peets, I returned to the office to find that someone came along and ganked the crank bolts out of my bar ends, which I used as end caps (because you never know)…

I mean, what the hell man! Really?

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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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