Team Lope Tyre Clubbe » fixed-gear

Fixed-Gear Sale: Ghostal $595

wrongrobot — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:57:03 +0000

Ghostal for sale. This was my first bike build on a brand new track frame rather than a conversion. It’s up for $595 obo (Price reduced by a hundy)

This is a complete build, assembled from scratch. The build is tight and true, and the bike rides very smooth.

Current Build:
- Origin 8 Del Pasado Frame/Fork with custom vinyl
- white on white pre-built Fixed wheelset
- white track tyres
- Cardiff leather saddle, white (brand new, already Proofide treated)
- Velo Orange stem and headset
- Nitto Bullhorns with Keirin grips
- Paul Comp cross lever (hard to find, brand new, aluminum)
- Shimano Ultegra brake
- Sugino cranks
- Shimano A530 pedals

The saddle that comes with the bike is the white Cardiff saddle, not the Brooks. The brake lever pictured has been replaced with a streamlined Paul Comp lever as noted. Bike is very clean; Will be sold with brake but you may sell the brake back to me for $20 if you don’t want to use one. That’s your call!

Make sure to contact me early if you want this bike. I will be in and out all weekend, so use phone: four one 5 4 six 5 272 four or email ( wrongrobot at thirdraildesignlab dot com) ASAP to set something up…

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steven jensen lands the first fixed gear tailwhip

ironlung — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:55:52 +0000

just because my overarching opinion is that FGFS is just BMX tricks with all the aggressiveness stripped therefrom, it doesn’t mean i don’t appreciate innovation. steven jensen, whom i’ve posted about in the TLTC blog before, landed the first legit tailwhip on a fixed-gear. crappy VIDEO, but you get the idea.

steven jensen is a super badass BMX kid, which i think is why he seems more hardcore than most.

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Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3

wrongrobot — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:03:35 +0000

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!

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Bike Build Process Log: Crook Type 3 Conversion

wrongrobot — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:46:48 +0000

As you have seen from previous posts, Crook was my Cinelli Mash fixie build, which had an expressed purpose: it was my ride for Aids Lifecycle. When I bought and built it, my vision was just to build the fixie I could do the MOST on… the longest days, the best climbs, the most agility, etc. So, it was done up with road drops, ridden for a few months before the ride (about 400 miles) and then on ALC 9 from SF to LA (another 570 miles)…

But something changed, along that preparation period before ALC. I found my initial rejection of the green limited edition version of this frame turning from dislike to interest. I couldn’t shake it. And then I had the idea: ride the gray ghost to LA, then have a metamorphosis to the green. So I took a risk on the green frame, site unseen, and ordered it before I left.

My initial plan was to come home, strip the bike, assemble the new one, then ride up to the city and meet Lung later that week with the surprise build. I had kept my plan a secret. The frame was shipped to my office while we were on the ride. All was well.

Until I got it home the day after we returned. The frame itself was gorgeous. The color is indescribable, and no pics do it justice. But the fork had carbon damage at the crown, painted over by the factory. Unacceptable! So I had to wait several weeks to get this resolved through my guys at City Grounds (zack is awesome, I say) and an understaffed Cinelli US crew. Ultimately, I got the replacement fork, and discovered the crown race was missing. We got that sorted, and I received the race in the mail last Friday, just in time to finish the build before Lung would arrive that Sunday for a birthday ride. The build was done from the back forward, but the front end was waiting on that race.

The ride is a dream, and you can see the Bio of the bike here.

Below are my process pics from the conversion, which involved using the original Crook bottom end, and a new top end.

:::

Unfortunately, the photos of the frame unboxing and the back end assembly were largely lost to a bad SD card. However, imagine me pulling a brilliant frame from the box and squeeing. The green is this iridescent color… not quite flaked, but shimmery. And more importantly, it’s a warm green, not a cold green. It’s paired with a creamy opaque white, a look I’ve always loved, going back to my one-time plans to white-paint-dip a stained-wood raw coffee table top for a project years ago. I love that look.

First, the original Crook was stripped to the bones, for sale to a fellow who was heading to San Diego fixed in a pursuit of folly similar to our fixed-gear Aids Lifecycle endeavors. How’s THAT for synchronicity! Last shot of Crook 1.0′s frame.

While waiting for the fork situation to be resolved, I dragged everything up to the deck for the extrusion shot (using the damaged fork, because hey.) and then decided to do the back end build work up there, while simultaneously BBQing and hanging out with wee Z. Here’s proof.

Here’s a close-up of that damage to the fork. Not a MASSIVE deal, but the concern I had was two-fold: one, the top surface of the crown is unpainted, so it’s visible in the gap between the frame and fork. This would be more obvious as a result. And two, it’s not like it was a sealed defect. That’s the EDGE of the paint. It’ll fray.

That was never fully resolved at the time of this writing. My boys at City Grounds took up the effort in dealing with Cinelli on that front, as weeks had gone by without any fruitful response from the manufacturer. It will be an argument over manufacturing damage vs shop damage. I believe manufacturing. In the meantime, as these weeks went by, my Crook parts hanging on the bikeBasement pegboards like those trophy skulls int he Predator ship, Lung was fast at acquiring and gleefully riding his new Cinelli cockpit. I was dying. I prayed he wouldn’t have a similar issue, like opening the box and finding his bars twisted into the shape of a rhombus or something. They weren’t. Gorgeous bars!

So as I mentioned, the bottom end was remaining from Crook 1.0. These were all new parts before ALC, right, so this transformation was to swap out frames, and the top end changes were largely cosmetic, except for the bars. So I kept my wheels, tyres, cranks, pedals, cog, brake… well, new chain, but other than that, same same. For the new stuff, the idea was to have chrome up top, black down below. I could have done all black, but the few green builds I see on the supernet go all black in the components or in one case all silver. So, in keeping with the ‘dipped’ theme of the white on the frame, the top end was dipped silver. Conceptually. Here wee Z is carefully scrutinizing some small gifts for manufacturing errors. That’s a shim set for the Nitto bars (unfortunately a necessity), a star nut and a special awesome Thomson solver stem cap. I used Nitto RB-021 compact bulls on this build, since the road drop necessity of ALC was over. I sourced a sweet silver cross lever directly from Paul Comp, too. Awesome. Same stem and seatpost, both Thomson, just now in silver. I used a shorty stem this time, feeling like going compact would get me into the bulls’ drop position easier. This is still pending final approval, as on the road it may be too close to me in this configuration, putting too much pressure on my arms. The saddle is one of my Brooks, already broken in, and the wrap is elkhide.

Here’s one Lung will like. Once I finally got my crown, I built my own crown race setter. And by built, I mean I had the hardware stoe cut me a big section of 1 1/2" black PVC. Tappity tap tap!
Look at that, saved $100 right there!

To me, the scariest step is cutting the steerer. On Crook 1.0, I left about 5mm extra, ringed with a final spacer above the stem, anticipating needing some height adjustment on ALC as I went. Didn’t end up needing it. Plus, this time, the bars are compact, so the taller the stem, the closer they are. Anyway, measure TWICE cut once, here at chez Wrongrobot.

Setting the star nut is actually kind of fun. Whamma bamma.

Here the bike is ready for wrapping. The Paul lever is installed on the thicker portion of the bars, as far over as possible to minimize cable housing scrape on the sharp curve of the X2 front end. This would be the slowest step, wrapping the bike up (literally) taking me from Friday night after getting back from Lung’s birthday party, through Saturday and into the next evening.

The elkhide is really interesting. It’s stretchier than calf hide, and is more porous, shows more defects. It’s really rad though. I had started with a lighter color that purported to match the Brooks honey color saddle, but was too tan, so i sent that back and got the darker brown, which matched perfectly. I used something close to a baseball glove stitch. I had no experience with this. You use one thick waxed cord with two stubby needles, and work from the stem outward. I’d get three good stitches and then a fail, distracted by my baby hurtling herself off of something or Anne Hathaway on film or whatever. But it wasn’t arduous. Just required time to get right. Go slowly, etc. In practice, on the road the wrap slips a bit as it’s stretchy and you apply so much force with your hands, so it pulled away a bit from the edges where they started, but still good. Will take some miles to settle in. Easily the most gorgeous bar covering I’ve ever had.

And with that, Crook Type 3 was born. We rode Paradise Loop under windy conditions, and it was a dream. I have some adjustments to make, reducing the inchgear down to the more universal 72 from 75, and some messing around with seat and stem position, but overall, love it. LOVE iot.

So that’s the story of how Crook became Crook Type 3 in a post-ALC transformation!

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Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Completeds

wrongrobot — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:40:34 +0000

Villain 3.0 is done!

I have a few adjustments to make, stem and a frayed cable and a few other things, but it’s ridable and ready to go.

To recap,
I started with a Look KG381 Jalabert Edition built-up with Dura Ace, and a Look KG381 Team bike from the 03 tour, converted to fixed gear. I pulled everything off the converted frame (Villain), pulled everything off the Jalabert Edition (JaJa) and set out to build up my road bike from the black frame.

The black frame was undergoing some issues under the strain of fixed-gear conversion… make that big-gear fixed conversion. i was running an 82 inchgear. It was an experiment. But it led to weaknesses in the design of the Miche Bottom Bracket becoming apparent ( no flange, slides in, cranks scrape the frame) and lots of undue torque on the dropouts, which have a 5mm rotational adjustment in them (which largely allowed for my magic gear in the first place.) Certainly the modern crabon frame can handle the torque of a big inchgear… this wasn’t even the biggest combination you’d get out of a standard 53/39 + 12/23, but while the front end of the drivetrain could handle it, the back end could not. Road dropouts just don’t suffer those forces like that normally. So, anyway, the condition of the frame was some nicks and dings in the finish here and there from the previous owner, some crank scrapery from me, and otherwise good to go.

Final build details:

Frame: Look KG381 Team (2003 Season)
Bottom Bracket: Shimano Dura Ace
Crankset: Shimano Dura Ace (53/39)
Pedals: Shimano A520
Wheels: Easton Vista SL, debadged
Tyres: Conti Gatorskin Hardshells 23c
Cassette: SRAM Force (11/27)
Front/Rear Derailleurs: SRAM Force
Brakes: Shimano Dura Ace
Stem: Thomson X2
Bars: Ritchey Carbon Streem
Brifters: SRAM Force
Tape: Shimano vinyl perf
Seatpost: Thomson Elite
Saddle: Brooks Swallow

ping!

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Ghostal About Town

wrongrobot — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:00:07 +0000

So last night my pal Pat (you may know him as Twowingsmambo on the forum from way back) and his wife Deina were over, visiting from Vermont. He wanted to give a fixed-gear a try so after dinner we went down and picked from my large stable of options… the only ridable fixed-gear at the moment, gah! Too many projects! Not enough completeds.

Anyway i went through the whole safety talk and warned him about pedal strikes and stopping pedaling and going too fast etc and he was ready to give it a go. And he was an effing natural. He was even trackstanding all of a sudden. Then it hit me: he used to ride BMX for years, and has a lot of that under his lid, combined with lots of mountain biking. It was very cool to see! He was transtanding better than I can!

Anyway, he wanted to try climbing so I showed him the drop position on the bulls and then we chose a pretty steep driveway. He got about 30 feet up and stalled. Then I gave it a go. I got 33 feet! Or so we’ll say.

Anyway, it was a great little jaunt, and I hope he ends up getting one for the warmer months out there. Perhaps a single-speed mountain bike is more appropriate. Dunno. Anyway, triumph!

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Q : what’s the opposite of flow?

ironlung — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:06:05 +0000

there’s a sublime fluidity of movement that most urban fixed-gear cyclists try and obtain a piece of, on every ride. it’s called "the flow," and it’s the indescribably peaceful and harmonious attachment between rider, bike, and street as they weave through the urban jungle. it’s an amazing thing to catch, and when you do, the rest of the world disappears. watching a rider on the flow is magical. it’s as if they’re liquid, moving through the city.

in BMX, there’s a different kind of flow. it’s the line of movement between one trick and the next, the line of action between obstacles. there’s a million different ways to link tricks across that line, and accomplishing them in a fluid movement looks effortless.

now play THIS and realize that it’s supposed to be a combination of the above.

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team lope ride report : berkeley hills, fixed

ironlung — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:31:49 +0000

yesterday, i took a ride with friend of TLTC r-e-L, who WR and i met on the lifeCycle back in june. r-e-L had planned the route, which was 50 miles through the berkeley hills. i was on one of my fixed-gears — the one i rode to LA. the route amounted to several thousand feet of climbing, with grades that approached 20%. some of the roads we were on had awful names like grizzly peak and wildcat canyon, and we did at least part of something called "the three bears." just the fucking sound of it is intimidating. we circled the reservoir and went by a couple parks as well. in the end, we spent well over half of our day climbing, and the heat was up in the 90s.

i’d prepared for the ride by resting and eating an entire pot of pasta the day before, doing a lot of stretching, having some muscle milk, and loading my bike up with dual waterbottles of powerade/water. unfortunately, we didn’t start the ride till 2PM, so despite what i’d done before, i went into the day with only a bagel in me that i’d had HOURS prior. NOT SMART. and i was doing this fixed.

the day started out pretty well, with lots of slow climbing and gorgeous views and general good times. we rode at a good pace and climbed and climbed and climbed. every ride i’ve ever taken in the berkeley hills is just climbing. it’s like the old stories your grandfather tells of having to walk to school uphill both ways. i don’t know how it’s possible. EVERYTHING is uphill. it’s fucked. but it’s not so bad and we talked and talked and had a good time.

about halfway through the day, the heat was really starting to get heavy. about this time, we found ourselves on a climb that i’d never felt the likes of before. the grade had to be near 20%, as my cross street in the city is 18%, and this was steeper. so steep in fact, that it beat me. i made it MOST of the way up and then completely shut down. i could feel myself going into dehydration and overexertion (tingly scalp, maxed-out heartrate, dizzy vision), but because i’m a stubborn idiot, i kept going. for like another 6 feet. hahaha!!! i pulled over under the shade and quickly stripped off my helmet, hat, and armwarmers (i have to — i’m too fair-skinned), and i unzipped my jersey. then i drank a TON of my liquid and popped a couple shotblocks and had half a bonkbreaker bar. r-e-L had come up on me somewhere in this process and i tole her to keep going, which she did. after i’d regained most of my strength (a few MINUTES), i climbed back on my bike and tried to go further. nope. made it about another 100 feet and it was just too steep and too hot. i had to give up. i walked up to where r-e-L was waiting and said "sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you." she was so apologetic — "i’m so sorry, i didn’t remember this being so steep and i know you’re fixed and i just feel really bad." i said, "this is all me. the last thing i had to eat was a bagel at 9AM and the last time i rode distance was ALC. i knew i wasn’t prepared for 50 through the berkeley hills on a blazing hot day on a fixed gear and i pushed it anyway."

after we were both rested up a bit, maybe a few more minutes, we got moving. i decided to try and ride the rest of the way up now, because it wasn’t that far, so i climbed on and grabbed my drops and clipped in and stood up and took one pedalstroke and CREAAAK! my whole cockpit collapsed. i have no fucking idea how this happened, but somehow the faceplate bolts on my stem came loose over the last week. my bars spun down inside the stem. WIERD. so we pulled over AGAIN and i fixed it and then we were finally out. i was coming around from my bonkout finally, and that’s when the right calf cramp started threatening. that lasted the rest of the day, which was awesome. more climbing and more climbing and MORE climbing.

we were now 3/4 of the way through 50 miles and i was pretty well out of liquid. that’s when i got the flat. rear tyre, who knows why it happened (there was nothing in the tyre), just one of those things. i thought about patching it, but i had a tube and a patch kit, so decision made — tube. more climbing and more climbing and descents with hairpin switchbacks and just a nightmarish back-and-forth of blazing sun and frigid shade. my body was taking a beating that i hadn’t experienced maybe ever. and now i was officially out of hydration. we kept hoping for a gas station or something, but we found jack. this is ghetto as fuck, but i did find a half-bottle of crystal geyser on the side of the road — lid intact and apparently ok. i poured it into one of my bottles. r-e-L and i were also sharing her last bottle at this point and she was running low. we were really on the dregs. and BOOM, heaven! a park with a water fountain. oh man, so stoked.

i parked my bike with the pedal-on-the-curb trick and went over and drank a TON of water, and then filled up both of my bottles. that was when my bike fell over on the cement on it’s new matte black cinelli drops. awesome. a pretty bad scratch the length of the lower, horizontal part of the left drop. the upside is that i was riding the bars with no tape on them, and i’ve been intending to get some soon, so it’ll eventually be covered. meaning no harm, no foul.

after that, the day was a cake-walk. we got back to her apartment, showered up, she made a fucking BOMB roasted chicken and some kale and roasted potatoes and we noshed on pita and hummus and carrots and snap peas — very kick-ass post-ride mealery.

unfortunately, BART stops running at a certain time, so i caught an 1130 train back to the city and CRASHED. OUT. i was fucking exhausted, had nearly had a goddamn heat stroke out there, and it was past midnight now, so i was feeling it.

today i woke up feeling tired, but not sore. that’s a GREAT sign. if i look back honestly on the day, the reality is that i almost bonked on one hill that was the steepest i’ve ever ridden fixed. that’s really all that happened. everything else was fine, and in fact, super fun.

i do recommend not trying this ride fixed, though, unless you run a high-60s inch gear. i run a low 70s and that hill beat me. granted, if i’d been properly nourished and it hadn’t been as hot as the face of the fucking sun out there, it may have been different, but that’s the way it is.

until the next time…

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bike build process log : the tumbler’s new cockpit

ironlung — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:55:16 +0000

THIS SHIT WILL NOT STAND…

i’ve been riding some old nitto road drops (see above) since i built this bike, and they’re great, but i’ve always coveted pista track drops. primarily for the purported increase in control, but with the secondary benefit that i think they look sick as fuck. so i snapped up some CINELLI PISTA TRACK DROPS and a CINELLI ROAD STEM a week back and headed down to my shop on saturday morning.

i always try and gather up everything i need before a project and lay it out on my workbench so that i can quickly grab stuff instead of having to reach over onto the pegboard while i’m trying to hold something in place or whatever…

first i stripped off all the shit i wouldn’t need anymore. my old bars and stem, my brake lever shim (the new bars have a 31.8 clamp area, so i didn’t need my shim anymore, thankfully), a spacer that had been on there for WAY too long (even though i committed to my stem height long ago, i never cut my steerer tube cause i’m lazy), and my headset compression bolt (the new stem came with a cinelli cap)…

next, i needed to mark where i needed to cut the steerer tube, as i was FINALLY committing to my stem height, which would allow me to get rid of that unsightly spacer ABOVE my stem. or, as i referred to it, "the angry inch…"

cutting a steerer tube that already has a star nut in it sucks. if the star nut isn’t far enough down, you need to first cut down enough to re-set the nut, then cut down again to the final size, and re-set the nut again. it’s frustrating not only for the cut-smack-repeat process, but also because if you use a pipe-cutter as i do, you have to go SUPER slowly in order to avoid deforming the steerer tube and potentially loosening the star nut’s hold inside. it’s just a drag. but i got it done and mounted the stem…

this stem has an interesting faceplate in that it has TWO faceplates. you can see in this picture, i’ve taken the top bolt out of the viewer’s right-side plate and let it hang down, leaving the viewer’s left-side plate attached…

and here’s the two plates removed completely, so you can see them better…

i’ve never seen anything like it before and it makes the assembly process a bit complicated, IMO. with a single plate, you can move around the 4 bolts in an "X" pattern, tightening the whole plate to the same general tension without even using a torque wrench. but with these individual ones, you have to eyeball it and feel your way through it a lot more and it’s just kind of nerve-wracking when you’re doing so on a $200 cockpit. but once it was done, boy…

i couldn’t be more pleased. i took it for a ride to, around, and from alameda, which included some mellow cruising and some city mashing, and it is amazing. the fatter tubing gives you a much more comfortable purchase on the bars when you’re upright, so even without tape, it feels great in your hands. the pista bend also forces your hands closer to the stem in that same upright position, so you’ve got a little more aggressive and dynamic control over subtle movements at speed. and the drop and reach is similar enough to the road drops that climbing feels no different at all (i climb in the drops on my fixed-gears).

aesthetically, i really don’t need to say much that you can’t see. the cockpit’s finally completely murdered out, which i love, and losing that shim on the brake lever gives a more flush look to the mounting, allowing the lever to really blend in to the rest of the cockpit.

i was lucky to have been riding the nittos just the day before, so i was able to immediately see and feel all the differences that the new setup provided, and they’re great. the weight difference is really only apparent when you pick the bike up, but the increased aggressiveness and control is on lock.

there is a downside, however. this cockpit is high-end, very expensive, and pretty desirable. and it can be completely removed by spinning 3 bolts. if a thief were to cut my brake cable and use a 5mm allen for about 2 minutes, they could have it. having a brake helps deter people (it’s just another thing to have to fuck with, increasing theft time), but it’s not foolproof. i have a few ideas that i’m going to play with, including filling the allen heads with melted wax and wrapping various pieces of electrical tape or bandanas around the branding. but it does make me a lot more nervous about locking it up outside. however, the TRUE solution to that problem is coming in another post. so stay tuned.

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No Gear

wrongrobot — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:11:02 +0000

This is a lot of reach here, but I love this OSHA warning graphic. It always reads to me as ‘no gear!’ like some sort of anti-road bike declaration.

Of course, fixed-gears have gears, I have road bikes, neither have two cogs grinding together, and even if they did, all we really need are more pie plates.

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