Well, THIS happened.

Derived from a sketch of mine, rendered with technical excellence by One Lung (below), fabricated by fine badgemakers Jones and Sons
Soon to adorn one Wrongbike.

How dope is THAT business?

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My practicing of ambi skids is still slow going. However, my other tasks continue to improve. I’ve been practicing skidding on different bars (and by extension, different geometries)… certainly Crook is the easiest to skid with, being a pursuit frame, and the bulls letting you get way forward. But I’ve now been able to skid on Rapscallion (the baby cargo bike, currently now only a cargo bike), Wrongbike and Carpetbagger. That’s in the drops (Wrongbike), on risers (Rapscallion) and on rising arcs (Carpetbagger)… but the Wrongbike situation leads to the next task: sit skids.

Being able to skid from the tops of the pista bars on wrongbike led to my cracking the sit skid. Before this, I could sort of accomplish it by getting into the drops or bulls or whatever, and I could get a bit of sit skid, but not much. Once I could skid from the bartops (granted, not long skids) I was able to focus on the lift and skid necessary to skid seated. I love it.

More arrows, you see! Now I can, for the first time, ride without my finger resting out of habit on the lever. If I see something happening, I can initiate a sit skid while getting to the brake.

Next up, more ambi skid practice, and I’m in the early stages of working on one hand sit skid. Which, of course, means coffee carriage.

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This is a lot like what Wrongbike was trying to be in it’s last incarnation. Though less polished. Well, WB was less polished. Had the flask though.

Same bike as the integrated brake…
http://trdl.tumblr.com/post/18453167162 … oks-i-mean

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So I finally finished wrapping up Wrongbike’s new pista bars. These were by far the hardest I’ve done.

I used a canvas base wrap, for two reasons: additional padding, and to help the elkhide stay put. I didn’t use any on the first wrap job (Crook) and over time the wrap has slid down the sides of the bulls. However, here, it posed a new problem: the diameter is now thick enough that the lacing can’t go completely tight, and just getting it as far as you see in these pics was brutal enough that my fingers and joints are still jacked up.

I had help, to the tune of two cats and three late night martinis (perhaps ill-advised, as the former were gassy and needle-grabby, and the latter led to a very short three hour sleep night thereafter, and not pleasant sleep either, with all that gin being processed; let’s not to mention the sewing errors I had to keep correcting)

It took about three hours all in I would say. Or, more accurately, 4 episodes of NY Ink forwarding through commercials. HA. It was tough. Going around that corner on the drops was hard. I had to abandon the double stitch towards the last leg of the drops too, in order to have enough thread. But on the upside, the red sneak in the wrap looks pretty dope, or SAWish, as Lung commented over the weekend.

Anyway, the build it TIGHT. I rode in today on it (yay Spring) and it felt great. I can skid int he drops pretty well, and on the tops in small amounts. In current config in the top photo, the bars are pretty low so mashing in the drops is hard on the knees. Though, side benefit, I can ding the bell with my knee at the ladies, the ladies. But it’s not a very comfortable spot. So I’ve subsequently tweaked the bars a bit and will keep screwing around with it until I have it dialed in. For now, I flipped the stem, but that’s goofy, so if I like that height, I’ll just stack some spacers under the stem as it was before. I’ve looked at the stem adapter I’m using and I think I could add about 10mm or so of rise without losing purchase on the steerer. I also tweaked the seat height yet again. I need to get a new seat bolt clamp to hold it place, as it keeps slowly dropping.

Gorgeous, I think!

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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…

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The other day, when I was lamenting not getting to ride in the rain (who does that) I noted that I’d post about my ride kit for rain days. I have a base kit that goes with me every day (if all goes as according to plan) including tools, spare stuff, a compressed shopping bag/ backpack, an asthma inhaler for emergencies, and a Heat Bullet. But I also have special sub kits that are conditional. For example, a cold weather kit, certain toolkit adds depending on bike being used, and so on. One such conditional kit is my rain kit.

I keep the other kits bundled in parcels in another container but this one gets a bin of its own.
Within:

- Pair of old Vittoria 1975s (these are the ones that got me to LA and were recently retired as the heels are breaking down) which I use for rain conditions these days.

- Waterproof ankle booties

- Clear waterproof jacket (large enough to cover a backpack)

- Brooks saddle cover

- Helmet cover (a new edition)

I’ve used the rain jacket several times, but the saddle cover I’ve always been too lazy to use. Now that I’m riding in the rain on a regular basis though, I’m finally using it properly. To be fair, previously my rain rides were on the baby bike, Rapscallion, with the baby seat removed, and that has an old Brooks saddle beyond help, and no other leather goods on it. But now that I’m riding any and all bikes, I wanted to take better care of the gear. Of course, leather doesn’t dissolve in rain, as many an animal will confirm for you. But it does stretch and such, something less desirable for saddles and bar wrap. Ironically enough, I had TWO of these saddle protectors when I did ALC and didn’t bring them. Subsequently the bikes were wet a few mornings as they were racked in the open.

Here’s that rain helmet cover. I never had one of these before. I never saw the need. But then again, I never deliberately rode in the rain. Sure, I’ve been caught out in the rain on long rides before, and whatever, you get wet. But one annoying thing about vented bike helmets is that eventually that water gets through your cap and then you get really soaked, water down the face etc… especially when one has no hair. So, not for your typical light rain day, but for a day like today, when I left the house in pouring rain? It makes a world of difference.

Here’s one of those Brooks Saddle protectors. It has an elastic rim, and then a cinch in back, as well as a clever velcro strap that you can secure on a seat rail just in case.

The remaining component of my rain kit is the fold-down European fender. I love this thing.

I was behind schedule last night so I brought the bike up to the house and then remembered it was on the deck, around 11pm, so I pulled it in the house and gave it a wipe down. In the morning, it was a feature item for my daughter, who helped get her mother and brother awake through the repeated use of the bell. As is her wont.

Yesterday was a light rain day. Today was a POURING rain day. And I had a great ride in. Yesterday was wrongbike, as above, and today was Crook. Good stuff!

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This is just a pet peeve post. Not much to report.

I slung the front brake on the latest iteration of Wrongbike the other night, using new Tektro finger levers sized for the pista bars being used, as donated by one Lung.

The annoyance I feel is the adjustment of the ‘clothes hanger’ on the front brake cable, which collects the straddling cable that in turn holds the two sides of the caliper system together. This Brake Delta or Brake Triangle, or, as I like to call it, COCKBIT, drives me nuts. Sure, I’m somewhat spoiled by stringing and adjusting side-pull caliper brakes. But the center-pull design is what I started out on with these conversions, first with Fixie and then with this bike. I’ve adjusted these 5,000 times, and enjoyed precisely zero of them. Now, look, it’s not rocket science, I know. But to test your setup you have to cinche that cockbit down tight, and that’s always a pain in the ass for me. Wrench on the back, socket on the front, fingers bleeding from the brake cable pokery invariably, and somehow it’s never properly adjusted the first time, and I have to adjust it two or three times. Let’s not forget you’re either holding the brakes together somehow, or you’ve sized it, let go of the brakes, then are setting the cockbit blind and hoping you didn’t slip a bit.

I have a tool called the Third Hand by some, that grabs the cable and pulls it tight against the tool itself, freeing you up for the aforementioned wrench and socket action, but I’ve had little success with it, due to clearance issues. The porteur rack makes access very tight.

I think what also frustrates me is that you go through this and the end result is a brake that works OHHKAY. The stopping power on those little chalkboard eraser pads is there, but not THERE there. And you have none of the mechanical advantage of side-pulls when using a finger lever. You aren’t supposed to be using the finger lever, actually. That’s part of the problem.

I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll keep this brake as is or just through a simple side pull on there. We’ll see, once I get to take it out for a test… which, looking at the longevity of this storm system, may be April.

Note also the space madness of getting the brake cable housing looped down to the hanger. I don’t like that one bit. So far.

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One Lung gave me a few road drops to try out on Wrongbike before I committed to the bulls, so I test fit the Pistas on there first.

Looks dope!

The real test will be on the road next week. I need to determine if it’s too slammed… the stem adapter is very short, and while I can flip the stem if need be, I have to see how riding in the drops would be in a technical situation. Ie. sweet, sweet skiddery…

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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!

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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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