THIS is pretty interesting. a 1-1/8" threadless spacer that looks like a vintage threaded headset locknut. strictly aesthetic, but still pretty awesome, especially if you were making a modern bike to look vintage or vintage-inspired. plus, SE always gets respect, simply for who they are.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. bike pure headset spacers
2. aresbykes adjustable headset spacers
3. headset race removal

despite being pretty grueling, the FFBC PRIMAVERA METRIC CENTURY was one of the best event rides that i’ve ever been on, and WR and i agreed that it was one of the best that TLTC had participated in, ever.

for the most part, this was the kind of ride we love and do with regularity — dozens of miles of long, winding rollies. that’s my favorite kind of ride because you have to be on your toes (cornering) and you can’t pussyfoot (climbing and descending the rollies takes effort), but you don’t kill yourself. you put in good work and you feel like you’ve had a ride, but you’re not blown out and useless for a day.

however, on this ride there were two distinct factors that we knew about going in. one was the heat. it was fucking desert hot. the sun just crushing you with almost tangible weight. this also means that you’re covered in sunscreen, which makes you filthy, and when it runs into your eyes, blind. the other factor was the climbs. with 3786 climbing feet over 63.5 miles, it SOUNDS like it would be a challenging but not necessarily backbreaking ride. but keep in mind that 2300 of those climbing feet are in two individual climbs — "the wall," at mile 18, and another at mile 50. because we knew we were going to be facing these challenges (and because i’d had a throat infection for a week and was still on antibiotics), each of us had outfitted out bikes with a bailout gear, like so…

my regular gear ratio is 44/16, which is a nice middleground 72.3 gear inch. the bailout shown above takes me to 44/20, which is a 57.9 gear inch — baby’s first climber. please note that i also carry an extra couple chain links to accommodate this bigger cog. my chain is outfitted with a master link, as is the extra section, so swapping doesn’t take me long at all. it proved to be a good decision. "the wall" is 1100 feet straight up, over barely 2 miles. "not for babies," as our brothers of HYPE down south would say. it stops guys on full cassettes, and we were fixed. given that fact, coupled with the heat, and trebled with the fact that we’d still have another 40-some miles to go afterwards, we didn’t even try it on our regular gearing, we just swapped at the bottom and proceeded. and even with this climbing gear, i was beat up at the top of that climb. covered in sweat, pushing hard, and moving slowly. but we both made it, and that’s what counts. then we flipped back to the other side for the next 30 miles or so.

we’d hooked up with TLTC supersoldier jefe, who was ghosting the ride, just before the wall, and he made it up and over with us (on his fucking BADASS klein road bike), as well as another few miles before he had the same catastrophic derailleur failure that WR had on the grand fondo some months back. his derailleur caught in the spokes and was torn upwards and apart in a millisecond. luckily for him, it happened on an ascent rather than a descent. we pulled over and endeavored to convert him to a single-speed so he could at least limp into the next town, but his shit was HOSED and it wasn’t happening, so we begrudgingly left him there with a promise to call his old lady once we got a signal, which WR did. jefe also lucked out when SAG brought him down into town, despite the fact that he wasn’t a registered rider. so everything worked out great there.

the only other mechanical we had was when WR threw a chain. turns out his axle bearing race (which is a misnomer, as he has sealed bearings, but it’s still called that because it has the exterior locknut) had come loose on his last wheel swap, allowing for his axle nut to loosen up over a few miles. once we identified the issue, he was good to go in a matter of seconds.

at mile 50 we hit the second climb, which was a different story. it was also 1000 or so feet of climbing, but this time was over a more realistic 5 miles. as such, we went into it without the intent of switching gears. we pushed up a mile or maybe even two, muscling along in our standard gear inch. we pushed and pushed, but every single time we’d round a corner, it kept going. there was never an end in sight, and that gets to you mentally. for me, it was when i finally got to a point that i could see a good 100 yards ahead and it was still going up that i decided to switch gears. ordinarily that would fuck with me but not push me to bail out. it was because at the terminus of that 100 yards, where it turned another corner, i saw a cyclist coming down the hill, whipping around the corner at speed. that meant that there was even more. and keep in mind that we’d been going for 50 miles in 90-plus degree heat, plus the previous climb. and it was a good thing that i did pull over to switch because i needed to take off my helmet & cap, as well as open up my jersey and down half a bottle of water. i was more burnt than i thought. additionally, after i did switch, there was no more shade till you got to the top. that’s a big deal. had i kept pushing through that on my regular gear, i’d have opened myself up to heat stroke.

at the top, once again, we swapped back to our regular gearing, which would take us all the way back to the start for another road ride conquered by the TLTC west coast commanders in a fixed fashion. we’re killing it these days, and getting known for it, and we fucking love it.

ordinarily when we show up on "fixies" to road rides we are met with a mix of admiration and indignation. some people condescend to us with passive-aggressive observations like "that’s just stupid," or "why would you do that?" others tell us that we’re awesome, or, as on this ride, "animals." we take it all in stride because we’re just out to have fun and challenge ourselves. we try and remain good-natured about it when people are shitheads, and we try to normalize it to others when they contend that we’re doing something impossible. but on this ride, it was extra nice because we didn’t really get any of the indignation. we were the only two people doing it fixed and we got a lot of props for it. people cheered us on and congratulated us and even wanted to talk to us about how and why we were doing it. it was really nice, a very cool community on this ride.

one of the greatest things about the day was the support and organization. with the possible exception of ALC, this was the best-supported and organized event ride i’d ever been on. there were enough SAG vehicles, the rest stops never felt overcrowded, nor were they ever out of any food/liquid supplies or medical/mechanical aid. it was really wonderful. nevermind that we had access to a pretty large meal at the end. lasagne, hot dogs, salad, fruit, juice, brownies, cookies, whatever we wanted. very awesome.

the one improvement that we offered as a suggestion was that they could have used a bit more clear route direction, but that was suggested with a caveat — the route WAS marked clearly, it was just marked on the road surface with spraypaint rather than on trees and such with signage. not everyone knew to look to the pavement rather than to signs. i figured it out early on and had no troubles at all, but others didn’t know about it, so we suggested that they just make that better known.

i was also happy to have made a new friend on the ride. this guy here saw me taking pictures of him so he strutted over and regarded me…

a great day and a great ride. and stay tuned to this link, because i have video at home that i have to edit down and post.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report: Primavera Century 2008
2. Team Lope Ride Report: Mt. Tam Climbing Century
3. Team Lope Ride Report – ALC Day on the Ride, WR’s Account

So I did a blasphemous thing yesterday, and put SPD cleats on my SIDI Genius III’s.
Actually, that was the culmination of a series of blasphemes.

- As a proper road rider for years, I’m not supposed to ride in anything OTHER than my high tech road shoe of choice, and that choice is limited to SIDIs, Time, Mavic, and a few other road shoes from Europe, and of course you stick with one brand only, just like you don’t go from Campy to Shimano. And of course these days I ride in modern versions of Vittoria’s loft leather shoe from 1975, and it’s a recessed cleat so I wear them to meetings. That’s forbidden. Proper road riders are supposed to hobble around on slippery exposed cleats. (Also, I ride non-road-bikes and I wear things other than kits, but I digress)

- As a proper road rider for years, I’m putting SPDs on my SIDIs. Now look. LOOK. They were LOOK for years, and before that Speedplay for years, but whatever the flavor of pedal, no self-respecting road rider uses SPDs. Much too heavy and cumbersome. Much too low power transfer. Much too mountain. And yet, these days I’ve converted all my bikes to SPD pedals so i can have one shoe to rule them all. Half of them use halfnhalf platform/clip pedals. It’s all sorts of wrong as far as the proper road rider is concerned.

Anyway, back to this: getting SPDs on SIDIs isn’t easy. The standard cleat mount is designed for Euro road racing standard cleats only (Look, Time) and you just can’t find accessories easily. This process began several years ago when I made that decision to go SPD. I wanted to be able to use my road shoes, of course. Of COURSE. I finally got someone to import the adapter plates for SPDR, which is not the same as SPD but is the SPD equivalent for road race pedals. From there, I used a second adapter plate and got the SPD cleats on there. This project languished for years. I just got around to finishing it.

These are my office shoes for lunch jaunts in the unlikely event that I had no clip shoes and DID have a bike to jaunt with.

Anyway, blasphemy!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain 3.0 – Swappery
2. clipped and fixed — should be scary, but mostly awesome
3. NOS adidas eddy merckx cycling shoes

So coming off a short but annoying cold I could tell my asthma was doing it’s usual thing and packing the congestion in my lungs like hibernation of pestilence, so something needed to be done. Also, I was itching to get some exercise after my bday and post-bday debauchery. Also, I changed the gearing on Crook Type 3 to 76 and was hot to try it on my Loring climb Alternate Commute Route. So I did. On a frosty, windy morning.

The climb was going to be tough, just judging from GETTING to it, having ridden this bike this route so many times. It’s a modest wavy grade to get to where Loring starts, and by the time I did, I was noticing my legs burning from trying to maintain my customary cadence. Heading up, the main difference was the point at which I hopped out of the saddle, which was a few hundred feet sooner. Otherwise, my performance was the same: no stops, slow grinding mash, and relieved to get to the top. That said, I had a much longer recovery at the top. I actually circled a few times before descending the other side because I wanted to attempt a brake free Alternate Commute Route and the legs felt fatigued.

After that, the descent was a combination of short skids to control speed, back pedaling and a few long skids at the appropriate places. I got to work without using the break I mean brake, which was nice. My quads felt tight, though.

When I left in the evening, I was feeling some soreness in my legs in about three or four places. Ride home was cold and windy and I mashed to get home in time to relieve the nanny, so to speak, so that combined with all the skidding, added to the work being done and you know how it is with muscle fatigue: it’s not any one thing you did or even the combination of them, it’s what you did PAST the point where your muscles were cooked. Having been off the bike for several days and having not done that climb in about a week and a half were all enough to probably make my muscles complain, but adding the bigger gearing to it again was the last straw for me ole quads. So last night I was stiff as a board throughout, getting the baby and chasing cats and what have you, and this morning, more of the same. It was ‘stairs are difficult’ level soreness, not too bad but very noticeable. Enough that my daughter kept asking ‘whatchoo doo on your knee!’

Swim class with her this morning was perfect for it though, as I loosened up and flushed them out a bit, and then I rode in after and got more of the lactic acid moving around and I’m feeling pretty good.

Still, I digress. That was all the unexpected outcome of Loring on the bigger gear for the first time. The point was loosening up my chest, and I’m happy to report that I sounded like Doc Holliday for three hours after I got to work. Tuberculosis cough, I mean. Also quotes: ‘you’re a daisy if ya do!’

Great ride! I love feeling the fruits of my efforts, and knowing that five similar rides from now I won’t be feeling that soreness.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report: China Camp Fixed
2. bike build process : coupler upgrades

Sorry guys. I mean, it LOOKS stealth and all, I’ll give it that. But it’s not as ultralight as the article posits. I suppose it’s what the objective really is defined to be, though: a Look 595 road bike build is far lighter than this hog. However, compare this to a single speed mountain bike with no suspension, and it’s still quite light. I don’t know. I just see matte black faceting and arbitrary bar shape.

http://gizmodo.com/5898032/ride-this-st … /gallery/1

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Bikes Make it Onto Jalopnik’s Urban Apocalypse Vehiucle List
2. Review: Cannondale Trail SL 29er 4
3. branded

Gots me means and methods!
Waiting on a small item that was missing in the shipment, and then hopefully will get started in a few weeks, after the holiday and such.

Surprisingly modest kit for such a powerful function.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. lungWish #333 – the xtracycle
2. Bike Part Orchestra
3. Xtracycle Bike Blender

Drunkcyclist, which I once thought was one surly, sassy individual but now know to be several, created a cool Occupy Bike Seat sticker, which I hope to soon acquire.

On the heels of that discovery, I noted the quite savvy use of a very aesthetically pleasing, in other words FIT, model to showcase a recent 29er review.

Here she is, displaying an Occupy Bike Seat sticker, making this relevant to the post.

Here she is displaying 29er riding fitment.

I love it! This is what we’ve been missing in Team lope Tyre Clubbe reviews. I mean, sure sometimes we have a soon-to-be-three wee lass modeling the latest baby bike fixie builds, but we need more hotness!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Swarm Seat Clamp Kickstarter Project
2. Team Lope Bike Grrls – Lucky Seat
3. The E-Bike

As Wrongbike continues the transition from a vintage themed rando style ride to a more composite fixie, I decided to pull the red stripe gumwalls off and replace them with Vittoria rubber. The gumwalls had tread but had been on for over 5 years so I decided maybe I didn’t want to be skidding on them.

My first thought after putting the new rubber on (these are 25s) was that it was jarring to have brown leather goods and chrome/silver polished parts and then black tyres. But that’s from having gums on there for so long. Look at any vintage roadster out there, even with whitewalls on, it’s got black rubber. Once I got used to it, I started to like it. The new slammed cockpit and pistas are making a big difference in making it aggressive too, along with dropping the wood fenders.

It’s really fun in this configuration. I’ll be wrapping the bars in elkhide when I get a few hours and martinis to spare, but as is it’s been enjoyable. I can skid in the drops, at least a short bit, though my experimenting was cut short by a loose pedal clip. I need to tighten that up. No fun flying out of the pedal on a skid. Above, Rain Mode.

All in all, refreshing to ride this bike for the first time in at least a year…

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 – Rubber Hits Road
3. Bike Build Process Log: wrongBike – Effing Forks, Seatposts!

Wrongbike has known many forms over the years. It was my second, and really proper, bike build, the first from scratch. It was set up as a conventional fixed gear for a long time, then lived as a rando-type setup for awhile. Now it’s going lean again. One detail I’ve become wedded to is wrapping bars with elkhide. However, as I prepared to do same on this bike, it occurred to me, fortunately in time, that with a quill stemm, unless you can unwrap that bar covering, it’s ON there. You can’t unwrap elkhide: it compresses, fuses a bit with the underlayment I use, and the strings are waxed and get messy if you try to unsew it. So, thinking ahead for once, I decided to convert to a conventional modern stem with a 4-bolt bar camp. That meant using a threaded to threadless adapter. Both stem and adapter I picked up at Recyclery last week, and Lung is bringing in some bars so I can test a few things, and soon, the wrapping will commence.

Once you mentally process the fusion of old timey lugging and new timey parts, it’s just fine. The polished silver components keep it classy, just like on Carpetbagger. You could go black, but then you’d have to make everything modern and blacked out (though not quite murdered out) and make a point of it. But not today.

Long live Wrongbike!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. cockpit upgrades, 2 of 2
2. Wrongbike Gets New Horns
3. Cinelli Badged Bars/Stem

This morning was my first ride on Crook after the new wheel, cog, and tyres.

Thoughts:

1. The cog is not as attractive as my Sugino system, which had a nice orangey-tint to the gold finish. But it’s still gold. Halo brand. 17t. Dira Ace lockring.

2. The hub is not as attractive as the previous hand-built hub, thanks to the former’s gold finish that matched the cog quite well. But I’m back in black, at any rate. And whole rear wheels with H+Son and All-City hubs for $160? Can’t beat it.

3. This was my first time ratcheting down a cog and lockring designed for skidding from the get go. All of my previous conventional cog wheels I just cinched the cog down, cinched the lockring down, rode out, re-tightened the lock ring once, and was otherwise good to go. Because, you know, no real backward forces except for back pedaling. But introduce those forces to a bike like that and the weakness in the set-up is immediately apparent. Witness Carpetbagger on first ride with Lung. He hoped on that fresh build, did some skid, and loosened the cog and lockring. So the cog could have gotten a hair tighter, and thus when it did get tighter as I rode over, the lockring was no longer snug against the cog, so when he skidded, he unwound them a bit. Same with the previous wheel on this bike, with the Sugino system on it. All my other bikes I’ve been retightening the lock ring throughout each ride to be safe. Anyway, here, I did a different method: hand tight cog, then chain whip tight, then only modestly tight lockring just to keep it in place. Then I rode up the hill by my house aggressively twice. Then came back, tightened the lock ring, and went to work.

4. I’m tightening that wee fucker all day. I felt some slip after my first long skid, but the cog seemed in place, so I tightened the ring more. Again, when I got to the office, after only a modest skid. Again before I took off this afternoon to do some little downhills around here. Now the lockring is tight and not moving. Still felt a bit of slip. Can’t see the cog going anywhere though. I’m keeping my eye on it.

5. Those tyres are glorious. I’m skidding nice and long now, and it’s easier to get out in front of the bike now. FUN!

That is all! We’ll see if I have a gloomy report tonight, or more good successes to follow…
I still want to take a chain whip to this cog again at home, just to see. It stands to reason that torquing it up hill was more force than I’m going to muscle it, but there was that pernicious microslip I felt. I may pull the switches from the bars and flip it and do the chain method.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Crook: The Rhyme of the Ancient Inchgear
2. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – Prime Assembly
3. Crook Caught

Less Current »