WR and i have been geeking back and forth off-forum about what gear changes we may or may not prepare for on our fixed-gear extravaganze to los angeles in the AIDS life/cycle this june. over the course of that conversation, it came up that i’ve been needing DESPERATELY to replace some drivetrain parts on the Tumbler. the bare minumum i needed to do was to replace my chain, which was WAY past it’s lifespan, and to integrate the aluminum left-side BB cup that i’ve had around for like 6 months. but as we discussed gears and so on, i decided to change my whole drivetrain. one factor in this decision was that the cranks i use, white’s ENO crankset, requires significant financial expenditure and technical effort to change the chainwheel. a more common setup would allow for quicker, cheaper changes. and as it happened, a recent decision that WR made left a nice set of pake cranks around, and oh, hey, are those matte black? why yes they are! so i snapped those up from him, and today went around to the shops and in addition to that new chain i needed, i also picked up a SOMA fabrications 17t cog. i’d done the math and the 46t chainwheel that the new pakes came with, in conjunction with a 17t cog, would give me a gear inch that was right between what i rode on loos3y(tm) for years (70.2) and what i’ve been riding on the Tumbler since i built it (74.9). the final gear inch that the new combo would give me is 72.4. almost EXACTLY in the middle, in fact. and i love this not only because it pushes me further towards a good middleground of climb and mash (my 74.9 was great for mash, notsomuch for climb, where the old 70.2 was great for climb, notsomuch for mash), but it also bumped my skid patches up from 5 (!!!) to 17!!! that’s even more than i had on loos3y(tm)! so it was on.

first things first, and that’s a hoist up onto the brand new spin doctor bike stand that i got yesterday…

this stand will probably get it’s own review, but suffice it to say that it’s kickass. next, i needed to get all the tools and parts out…

orgPorn shot!

next step was to take all the old shit off. i put off to the side whatever was not being reused, and cleaned up whatever was. while i had the BB disassembled, i took the time to give that area of the frame a good cleaning, too, cause fuck it needed it after all this rain we’ve been having. then, armed with a clean palette and ready parts, i set to work.

first step, swap the cog…

god DAMN i love the look of those SOMA fabrications cogs. they’re plain black, zero texture, and branded nice and simply. the lockring obscures the branding, which i don’t care about one way or the other, but there you have it.

next step was to finally, FINALLY install that aluminum left-side BB cup i’ve had around. as you can see, the plastic one was WELL past it’s lifespan, with a huge crack in it…

so the new one…

went in…

complete with lots of phil on the INSIDE surface, where the free-floating end of the BB will rest. the reason i did this is because aluminum frames creak like a motherfucker at the BB, and i’m running some tests to see if i can solve it. the new chain is one test, the metal BB cup is another, but the greazing of the inside surface is yet another. i don’t know if it’ll work, but it can’t hurt, and i’ll provide further details as i ride it.

ok, moving along, i installed the new cranks…

fucking SWEET. matte black cranks on a matte black bike. oh, they look dreamy, don’t they? fuckin score, thanks again, WR.

after those were on, i just needed to install my new chain, and i’m pleased to say that i scored a black half-link BMX chain today unexpectedly. i have loved the look of half-link chains since i put that shadow conspiracy one on schwixie(tm) a while back. they just look so fucking mean and meaty. you pay a gram cost for these big ole BMX chains, but they’re fucking TOUGH, so i’m willing to do it.

have a look…

looks BALLER. cash money. ALL killer. NO filler. and having ridden one of those big ole motherfuckers for a long time, i can say with certainty that it’ll feel really good, too.

one unexpected benefit of this drivetrain upgrade was that my rear wheel now sits about a half-inch or so further forward in the drops. this is strictly an aesthetic benefit as far as i can tell — the only thing that a more forward axle gives you, to the best of my knowledge, is greater ease at doing wheelies, which i don’t do. but i like the way it looks. so that’s cool.

oh, another thing, i guess it was time to swap out my chainring anyway, cause look what i noticed after i got the old one all cleaned up…

i don’t know if you can see it in my crappy cameraPhone pic, but those teeth are all hammered. the metal is starting to bunch up and overlap. yeesh. i think i was pretty close to some broken chainring teeth, and i didn’t even know it!

now that all is said and done, my bike is already making less noise with today’s shoptime, and that’s all about the chain. when a chain gets old, it gets loose spots in it. so you sort of constantly have this loose-tight-loose-tight thing happening across all the teeth on your drivetrain, and it causes pinging and creaking noises to happen, even on non-aluminum bikes. so that’s a great change.

i haven’t ridden it yet, because i had a couple beers while i was working on it, so i’m not gonna have my test ride end in an ambulance ride. but i am riding to a super bowl party tomorrow, and i’m very much looking forward to breaking in the new drivetrain and really seeing what benefits, detriments, and adjustments it all causes.

but it was a GREAT day in the shop (my first actual project day in my new shop, in fact! cherry pop!), a significant upgrade to my favoritest bike ever, i got to use my new bike stand, i got some LONG-overdue maintenance taken care of, i made great strides towards being a better cyclist on the life/cycle, and i just had fun!

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Related posts:

1. bike build process log – Tumbler, nonemoreBlack
2. Bike Build Process Log: Crook – Prime Assembly
3. team lope bike bio — the Tumbler!

this bike came and went before we even knew each other.

i landed a KILLER deal a while back on what was essentially a complete bianchi road bike from the 80s. it was only missing wheels. at the time this bike was produced, the italian manufacturer was getting their steel from japan. this is a very desirable bike not just for the name, but for that japanese steel detail. i scored it for a song, and the reason was that the guy who had it sitting in his garage gathering dust hated the idea of it not being used. so he offered it to me. as i said, it was only missing the wheels — every other component on it, complete down to the original suntour groupo, was intact, meticulously maintained, and in essentially perfect working order.

so naturally, i stripped and fixed it. hahaha!!! no, the reason i did so was that it was hanging on my wall for a long time, starting to gather dust in MY shop now, and i remembered that he wanted this bike to get some loving, so i explored a theory i had. the theory was that i had enough parts just laying around that with a frame and fork, i could pop out a whole bike without having to buy anything. and since my inent with this bike is to restore it to it’s vintage road racing glory (i saved all the vintage road components that i took off of it, naturally), i was blessed with the freedom to just cobble together a fixed-gear bike that would have an expectedly short life span — no concept, no studious research, no slooowly gathering up parts — just throw it together, enjoy it for however long it rolls, and strip it back down again to get it ready for it’s future as my second bianchi road bike.

sure enough, it worked. and BOY did it work. this bike turned out to be one of the strongest, most badass bikes i’ve ever made. a steel frame is the core that makes any bike moBetta, so that was the start, but the angles and the posture i gave it combined to make it this beautiful, perfect townie cruiser. it wasn’t a masher at all — it was a goin-out-for-pizza bike. a cruisin-to-the-waterfront bike. a straight up relaxer. it was kind of a cadillac — you get into it and it can haul, but why fuckin bother? it felt so good to just rrrooolll…

anyway, nothing special about the componentry — it had the original front brake and cranks and 42T chainwheel, my strap-n-cage platform pedals, a swobo seat, schwixie(tm)’s old riser bars, the lean’s old grips, a generic brake lever i had laying around, and a set of wicked silver deeps i bought off of WR.

those wheels are sort of an additional reason for the temporary state of this bike’s life — i bought them to make a fixie for (SG)f, who’s grown to LOVE cycling and our time out on the pedals together. so they were always intended for her bike, which is now underway, and wearing them.

thus, this bike is gone again, relegated to being just another frame and fork on the wall of the shop, awaiting it’s revival … again.

couple of great contributions it gave to the world, though…

+ one night (SG)f wanted to ride our bikes down to try out a new pizza joint. after dinner, she opined that we should take a ride … "that way." this ended up being a very long, late-night ride all the way across town to aquatic park, where we sat and watched the stars under an unseasonably GORGEOUS, warm, clear night.

+ on halloween morning, WR found some time to have breakfast with one lung before spending the day shuttling more shit out of his old apartment here in the city. having not been thinking about riding, he didn’t bring a bike. and we’d have been foolish to drive to the breakfast place we were thinking of, so i was able to provide a "loaner fixie" to my good buddy, which he quite enjoyed riding to and from our delicious meal.

i’d say that’s a life well spent!

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Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Bio: Schwixie(tm)
2. Team Lope Bike Bio [Retired]: gangstaLean(tm)
3. Team Lope Bike Bio: Fix-e

This is a gallery of Ironlung’s Schwixie(tm) bike build project photos. Click any image to enlarge it and make clucking sounds of approval!

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1. Bike Build Photo Gallery: Fix-e
2. Bike Build Photo Gallery: WrongBike
3. Bike Build Photo Gallery: Crook

one of the things that people have asked me over the course of the time that i’ve kept a full-blown shop going is whether or not i started out by buying a ton of shit just to have around. i mean, if you’re in my shop (or WR’s, or joblue’s), you realize that every need is right there on the wall somewhere. "i need a stem bolt." boom. got it. "i need old school seat guts." boom. done. "hub?" fixed or geared, what’s your preference?

the answer is, of course, no, none of us went out and bought one of everything. but what we DID do, and continue to do, is keep every little bit and piece from every build. if the part still works, it stays. period.

here’s how it works, using a piece of a project from today as an example. long ago, i bought a rear wheel for schwixie(tm). i bought the wheel complete — hub, spokes, rim — all laced up, trued, and ready to go. then i put a shimano dura-ace fixed cog and lockring on there.

this is that wheel…

but on the REBUILD, i want to use a different hub. and i’m not ABOUT to buy a whole new wheel just for a new hub. so i took the wheel apart to it’s parts, thusly…

see now, instead of a wheel, i’ve got…

+ 1 120mm fixed/free 36h hub
+ 1 15t shimano dura ace fixed cog
+ 1 dura ace lockring
+ 1 27" aluminum rim
+ 36 spokes and nipples, sized for a similar build to this.

the rim will get laced to my new hub when that arrives, and i’ll have to pony up for new, shorter spokes at that time, but point being, now i have an additional cog and lockring around (already had one of each), AND a hub onto which i can build up another fixed back wheel for another bike!

and THAT’S how we all have all that shit around our shops.

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Related posts:

1. shop review — 718 cyclery
2. Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Wheels Selected
3. kimori fixed-gear adapter

yeah. i’m not so sure i want to subject schwixie(tm) to THIS type of malfeasance, but the idea’s sound…

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2. Japanese Bike Storage
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george carlin had this great little bit about "stuff," and how when you go somewhere, you take a big load of stuff, but then once you’re there, someone wants to go on a quick weekend, so you take a smaller bit of stuff, and on the weekend, you want to go out, so you take an even smaller load of stuff. it was hysterical the way he did it, cause it’s effing george carlin.

i find myself thinking of that bit all the time, cause i am a TOTAL culprit for that bit. i have various loads of stuff that i take, given the situation. and the most perpetually in flux is my riding stuff. for purposes of this, you can just take it as a given that my helmet (SEEN) and lock are always with me — helmet on head or in hand, and lock in back pocket or holding my ride.

that said, here’s some of my riding stuff…

PACK
this bag is really small, and so multi-use, it’s insane…
+ can expand another 4 inches from it’s standard cargo capacity (good for a pair of shoes)
+ special compartment can hold a big-ass bladder of water, with straw coming up over shoulder to mouthpiece hanging in front (good for long rides)

you can see that little white cord going to my ipod remote on the one strap. (i made the ipod peek a little out of the bag there, too.) that remote is on the strap that crosses over my chest and the headpones plug into that, so i have skip, play/pause, and volume controls right there while i’m riding. the other strap has a small combat knife on it, also for quick access.

inside that small outer compartment … pen, paper, extra bike lock key, ipod charger, phone charger, pillbox of advil, cycling map of sf, map of alameda, stamps, gum, matches, some zip-ties, sunglasses, small flashlight.

the inner compartment fluxuates, but for the most part usually has … hoodie, fresh drawers and socks, tshirt, knit cap, arm warmers, bike headlight and tail light.

i try and always leave extra room for one of stuff shaped like the following … operating system discs, small framed art, a tupperware of food, etc..

: : :

but then what if i don’t need to bring all that shit? on to smaller stuff. and this stuff is always ON my bike (until i go inside somewhere, then i take it with me). so like if i’m not going to work, or i’m not going to (SG)rrlfriend’s house, or to dinner, or whatever, i ditch the pack and just roll with the needs, in this…

UNDERSEAT BAG

somehow, using lots and lots of stoney forethought, i’ve come up with a packing system that allows me to fit all that shit into that little bag … pump, extra inner tube, ratchet, 5 sockets, an allen key, tyre levers, zip-ties, band-aids, and an extra key to my lock.

i can pretty much field-strip my entire bike using that shit. i have another underseat bag on whatever my other bike may be at the time (in this instance, WRs loaner bianchi roadbike), but that usually has a lot less stuff in it, because modern bikes don’t require an entire craftsman toolchest to work on, like schwixie(tm), whose frame, steering column, and seatpost are 36 years old this year.

: : :

kind of a bikey geek-out post, but whatever.

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Well, I’ve been working on this for quite a while.

When I decided to get back into cycling about 3 or 4 years ago (after about an 8-year hiatus), I needed a bike NOW, and so I picked up a 1972 Schwinn Varsity off of Craig’s List for 75 bucks. It weighed about a million pounds and it rattled like fucking crazy, but it worked and I was riding again.

As time went on, I came across a free frame which went on to become my beloved Lean(tm) — urban smash-bike like no other — and so my beautiful orange bomber got stripped down to the parts and hung on the wall "for another time."

Well, that time came. I needed another bike project (cause you know, I need bike projects), and I’d been toying with the idea of building a fixie — a fixed-gear, one-speed, purist’s bike. I’ve previously admonished hipster fools for riding fixies, as they seem to be trendy these days. I, on the other hand, am not trendy, and I have been riding bikes since those fools were on momma’s nipple, so I let all the hatred go and committed to restoring and re-vamping the Schwinn with no gears and no freewheel.

And lo and behold, SCHWIXIE(tm) was born…

• ’72 SCHWINN VARSITY FRAME/FORK
• GENERIC HEADSET
• VINTAGE SEAT COLLAR
• VINTAGE STEM
• VINTAGE SCHWINN-APPROVED FRONT BRAKE
• 27" WEINMANN ALUMINUM WHEELS
• SHIMANO TRACK COG, 15T
• 27 X 1 1/4" DURO WHITEWALL TIRES
• CRUPI BOTTOM BRACKET CONVERSION CUPS
• SHIMANO BOTTOM BRACKET
• DOTEK CRANK ARMS, 165MM
• DIMENSION PEDALS
• PROFILE BMX CHAINWHEEL, 40T
• SHADOW CONSPIRACY "INTERLOCK 2" HALF-LINK CHAIN
• WALD STEEL SEATPOST
• GENERIC SEAT GUTS
• BLACK MARKET "KNUCKLES" SEAT
• AZONIC DOUBLEWALL RISER BARS, 1.5" RISE
• S&M LOGO GRIPS
• POVERTY BEND-E LEVER

This bike is fucking bad ass, and it gets a lot of looks and compliments. It’s still heavy, but it’s WAY lighter than it was when it was all vintage. And it’s surprisingly FAST. It’s very maneuverable, it’s completely trick, and with the exception of a loose headset (unfixable, thanks to the frame/fork’s age), it’s lock-down tight.

The element of the bike that I personally like best is that I’ve managed to maintain EXACTLY the visual layout of the original. The complete ’72 had a black seat, white cork grip tape, chrome cranks, etc.. I changed all the structures, but I kept all the colors in exactly the same place.

Yes, that’s a brassknuckle graphic on the seat. I could’ve shit when I found that seat online. Ordered it immediately. I really scored on those tires, too. WHITEWALLS? Come on, you know that’s ill. But the part that gets the most talk? The chain. I think it’s because it looks so unique. That chain is made for BMX bikes (most of the parts are, actually), but I got it cause it’s made of "half-links." Instead of having to take out an entire chain link to shorten it, with this, you just have to take a half of a link, cause that’s all there is. Meaning you can massage the size in a VERY savvy manner, which is important with these kinds of bikes. But it’s also bomb-proof. That chain is made to be grinded on. So it’s beefy as fuck. And people notice.

Anyway, this bike takes some SERIOUS control to ride. See, on a fixed-gear, you cannot coast. As the wheel turns, so do the pedals. There’s no freewheel and there’s no coaster brake. You pedal forward, you go forward. You pedal backward, you go backward. As you can imagine, this motherfucker is DANGEROUS. But it’s also VERY fluid once you get the hang of it. And therein lies the joy.

Also, this bike is CLEARLY a female. She can’t be controlled easily, she has a mind of her own, and if you don’t work WITH her, she’ll fucking throw you down. HARD. And yes, I love her.

Schwixie Photo Gallery

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Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Bio: Fix-e
2. team lope bike bio — bianchiBlue
3. Team Lope Bike Bio [Retired]: gangstaLean(tm)