My friends were like, “is this a NORMAL mail day at the Biketinker house?”
No, it’s pretty superlative. 100 Tacos shiny Suntour sticker, Jacquie Phelan postcard AND a mini-letter with a new green Wombats patch!
Author: philip
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Fitz Porcorosso
Fitz bikecamper at Pomo Campground New bike day
This new Fitz Porcorosso is an update to my 2019 Fitz Supermoto. Both are custom drop bar, rim brake, go anywhere (carefully) bikes. Big tires, big dropper post. The main update with the new bike is “make it bikepacking” with zits galore on the forks and frame. Fitz Cyclez
Fitz Porcorosso I want to keep the Supermoto at our Grass Valley glampsite, since that bike can go anywhere I want to go, has lights, and the dedicated basket rack can carry groceries home.
The new Porcorosso doesn’t need to do everything, since it slots in between the Frances and Quickbeam (baskets and lights) and the Stooge Scrambler. Out of the gate it has 48mm knibblies and no light or racks.
Travel agent and an old brake to (try to) mitigate squeal I had collected some inspiring parts, which is always dangerous. I wanted to try brifters for the first time, so I got some eBay 10sp SRAM shifters and the Ratio 12sp kit. I got good bargains on a closeout Onyx hubset, shiny XTR skewers and cranks. I also got on the list for the new silver PNW dropper, and it seemed churlish to not buy one.
200mm silver PNW dropper post I wanted this bike to be fancier than the utilitarian Supermoto. Raked fork blades, shiny details, and a new Fitz thing, a curved top tube.
Check out the polished seatstay eyes Polished Fitz headbadge, VO headset, painted Crust stem The Steve Potts dirt drop bars are wider than my usual RM-2, and complement the 50mm stem SRAM Red lever makes an ideal dropper control Onyx rear hub gives instant engagement and silent rolling (call them for a 135 road QR hib) Fitz “Porco Rosso” is named for the Miyazaki movie and inspired by the Savoia S.21 seaplane
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What I like about my commute
Seeing Sonoma and Marin and SF as the sun comes up.
Toll Plaza sunrise Oct 6 Headlands moonset Oct 7 -
New Fitz frame
Curved top tube lots of custom details. Illusion Cherry powdercoat. Fitz Cyclez
shiny painted frame John in the shop with the finished frame BikeCAD drawing of the Porcorosso bike My thumbnail drawing of the Porcorosso bike with bags -
Bruce Gordon Rock’n’Road’n’Road Tour
State of the Stable 2023
I bought the frameset used at Christmas time 2022. The stem had been sold, but I got a matching Valentine Red stem from a friend a couple days later. Currently I’m using a slightly taller stem with less reach, but may go back to the red one.
It’s built up with 3×9 parts off the Fitz. XTR rear derailleurs and Ritchey Logic cranks have been signature parts for me since they were current.
A friend gave me (‘gave,’ not ‘gifted’) a set of gray brakes which kicked off the build set: gray PNW pedals and tape, but the tape discolors unpleasantly; gray XTR hubs I built into wheels with DT Swiss A319 rims (cheap wide good); gray Cambium saddle with a cool topo map pattern that looked good with the bar tape when the bar tape looked good.
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Frances Cycles custom “light tourist”
I’ve had this bike for
almost two yearsabout six years now. Here’s a New Years 2022 update photo:Frances custom bike – metallic green People are shocked that it’s ‘new,’ since it’s steelier and beautifuler than most modern bikes. It’s a Frances, out of Santa Cruz, custom built by Joshua Muir for someone who is not me. I like it.
What, this old thing? It checks all my boxes: steel, fillet, gigantic, “all this by hand” custom, built with American tubes and fitments. Also a crazy color I did not pick. Color-matched stem and custom racks. I’ve met the builder and I like him. I think he’s a genius. Have you seen his cargo bikes??
I have three friends that regularly text me links to green bikes “YOU SHOULD BUY THIS.” This one I saw on Craigslist, looking for “custom.” The ad didn’t even say “Frances,” just “custom by Joshua Muir.”
“I know who that is!” I met Josh at a Portland NAHBS, or similar bike show, and fell immediately in love with the bikes and the pretensionless air of his whole presentation. Zero other builders had Nashbar brakes on their bikes. Josh had borrowed back bikes from his friends and customers, and they all had workmanlike quotidian builds, instead of self-conscious overwrought bling like everyone else.
This frame is unselfconscious bling. The color is amazing. It’s a metal flake green called Illusion Mist. The stays are bowed in a trademark way, and the stay ends and custom stem feature whale fluke details. The tubing is all True Temper, because Josh bought up as much as he could afford when TT got out of the bike tube business, and the fitments (dropouts, lugs, crown) are all Henry James or Pacenti. The stem and racks match the frame. Maybe one day I can afford a Wayfarer trailer, painted to match.
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Bontrager Enduro Allroad ”gravel bike”
Bontrager Privateer Comp drop bar rigid mountain bike 2023 New Year’s update. Knobby tires, original XT cranks back from the Fitz. I moved the RTP tires to my sister in law’s Trek 930, and I sold off all the XTR cranks and funky bottom brackets, including the XTR/Jericho setup (which would have looked amazing on the Fitz…).
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Bontrager Privateer Comp “gravel bike” 2022 New Year’s update. Rat Trap Pass tires, Nitto riser threadless stem, XTR cranks. Unicanitor saddle for all-weather riding. I stole the old-style Bontrager innertube sleeve to protect the seat post slot; I got the idea from the RoadLite, and found old catalog pictures showing other Bontragers with it.
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One of my
currentolder project/brainworms is to convert my Bontrager to a fat-tired road bike. Bars are On-One Midge bars with bar-end shifters. I swapped the SID Dual-Air for a Kona P2 canti fork, and bought some phenomenally expensive (for me) Compass Rat Trap Pass tires. I’d been planning the conversion for some time, but changed the fork the day after I rode down Mt Tam and back to the top with knobbies and a suspension fork.I visited a couple of cool bike shops in Sebastopol, and got some bar tape, since I like to buy something when I visit a shop. Black bar tape replaces the dingy faded cloth tape, looking a little more intentional. Spot the electrical tape fanciness on the stem!
Here’s the “finished” bike, still wanting an LD stem (UPDATE: I tried an LD stem, and it was too tall), and A23 rims for tubeless setup. Maybe a setback (or just fresher-looking) 27.0 seatpost (UPDATE: I got a Thomson post).
Bontrager Privateer Comp with drop bars and rigid fork I rode it for a week with the rigid fork. Less funky dive in the corners. I like it. I chose the canti-only fork because it’s lighter, I don’t like extraneous bits, and I’m happy with V-brakes on this bike.
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This was always a fine bike, and it came with Bontrager-modified King hubs. Keith Bontrager once told an interviewer they were the one piece of kit he wished he had a secret stash of.
Bontrager Privateer with drop bars and suspension fork -
Pi Day Ride
An online acquaintance mentioned that he was leading a 31.4 mile Pi Day ride, and I had to steal the idea.
It’s a nerd’s nerd thing, Pi Day, and today’s is special. Today’s date is 3/14/15, which is the first five digits of Pi, 3.1415. Further, at 9:26:53 this morning, we were good to 10 digits of Pi!
Epic Pi Day.
Bike nerd? Check. All-’round Nerd? Check and double-check. I started my ride at 9:26:53 (Strava should have a time counter into the hundreds of seconds for starting rides like this. You know, the ones that happen every hundred years)… or so.
I was kind of surprised I started on time, but I woke up naturally (the reason we have Saturdays), thought, “I’m not sure if that dream was troubling or comforting,” and started putting on bike clothes. Full Riv regalia: sneakers, wool socks, Riv knickers, Wooly Warm jersey, Devold underwear. The jersey was green, which didn’t match all the blue everything else, but my baby blue jersey is looking kind of green itself after all these years.
In addition to the ONCE IN A LIFETIME MAGICAL NUMBER THING, I also wanted to get some miles in before the Strada Rossa, and assess how enjoyable the 50k is going to be after a “winter” of sloth. Turns out, that’s a good length to feel like I accomplished something, but still enjoy the whole thing.
So, I rolled out, bought a double Americano (very nice, $2.07 (that’s a stupid price – not egregiously high, just a dumb number. I was going to pay cash, but switched to a card because I didn’t want 93 cents in change rattling around my pocket, so it cost them whatever the card companies charge)), and headed to the Prince’s Greenway.
Holy Grounds coffee shop
My plan was to run the loop of Sonoma bike paths I’d mapped on Google Maps that added up to 31.4 miles.
Oh yeah – this is me, before the ride.Mostly I did that, with a couple
wrong turnsside quests. I have to say, that the trails are pretty awesome, but the signage is designed to please the people standing back admiring their handiwork, not the people navigating intersections while focusing on moving automobiles.I took the Greenway/Creek Trail to Willowside road, shelling grandpas and kids on trikes like a Cat 6 monster, then took Hall Road into Sebastopol, where I finished my coffee in front of the Whole Foods.
Heading North on 116, I stopped at Andy’s Market (legit produce) for another Americano. This one was marginally cheaper, at $1.75, and tasted smokier than the Holy Grounds espresso. I very much enjoyed it, and it would appeal to people who like Portland espresso. Frankly, it had all of the good and none of the bad (“What? This is no longer a fluid. It’s a solid. You just steamed the grounds.”) aspects of Portland espresso.
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Mailing out Entmoot Patches
Every Bay Area Rivendell Rider who mailed me an SASE* from Canyon, CA (a place fighting to keep its post office) last Sunday got a free Entmoot patch. A bike drawing was worth extra points, but was not required.
These are the outgoing patches, with the incoming envelopes.
Cool stamps were also worth points.
Points are not redeemable for cash.
*Self Addressed Stamped Envelope. From the old days. You buy two stamps, and two envelopes. On one envelope, you write your own address, affix a stamp, fold it in half, and put it into the second envelope, which you mail. Someone puts something in the first envelope, and mails it back to you.
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Military Surplus bag for Wald baskets
My kid and I stopped into a military surplus place in Cotati, and I picked up a little medical kit. It’s a green nylon pouch with a green plastic box inside. The box closes, and the pouch has nice snap-through hardware. On the back of the pouch are two metal clips that lock.
It turns out these two clips are EXACTLY the height of two Wald basket wires, top to bottom on the medium.
The clips snap down and lock, and there are two grommets at the bottom of the pouch that you can zip tie to the bottom wires of the basket.
I put some first aid stuff in the pouch (since it’s a medical kit), and big gauze pad fits behind the box.
My wallet fits in front.
Inside is a tube, tire levers, some allen keys taped together, and an inhaler.
The box is easily removed for use.
And overall it complements a green Quickbeam quite well.
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State of the Ross Porteur – 10/11/14
I sold my S3X/dyno wheelset and halogen lights, leaving the Ross without a front wheel (because I didn’t go get one off the pile in the shed and put a tire on it), and I took the chain for the Singular, or maybe the Quickbeam after I rode it on gravel paths in a rainstorm.
I had planned to make this into a geared roadbike, with the old SON hub and new IQ Cyo LED headlight, but no derailleur hanger or shifter bosses make it seem better off remaining a fixie. Maybe the Quickbeam needs to become the fendered winter commuter, and the Ross setup as the fixed/free double-single “fast” roadbike.
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SOLD: Amazing 56cm Bombadil Frame
Rivendell Bombadil mountain frameset: 56 cm frame
Frame/fork/headset/BB, asking $1200 shipped.
The seller (friend Pudge) says, “There are some chips and rubs, no dents. If I kept it I would probably have had it repainted, but I’m a bit fastidious about such things.” I read that as “almost flawless,” but I am NOT fastidious about such things. I love the solid blue color for this style of bike. It’s an early Bombadil, with the parallel twin top tube, not the diaga-tube, and without the later “extra” mid-stays.
Interested, click through to comment on the Flickr picture.
If you’re interested in the bike as built, you’re going to have to make an offer, which might necessitate some research to get values on the unique parts build. Ghisallo wooden rims, creme Hetre tires, and the great custom “cats” chainring. Put on your sunglasses, this is awesome.
56 cm frame; Nitto Lugged Stem, Mini Front Rack and Bullmoose handlebars; Brooks B-17 Select and Plump Grips; Ghisallo beechwood rims; Weigle-modified Campy front and White Industries ENO rear hubs; Bruce Gordon cantis with replacement cork pads to accommodate wooden rims; Paul Canti levers; Stronglight 49D crankset with Bespoke Chainrings “Solida Cats” 44 tooth chainring; Phil Wood pedals; Berthoud Saddlebag and rack; Grand Bois Hetres.
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Rolling Tires… off the rim!
So this happened. Twice.
My new (to me) Phil Kiss-Off wheelset, WTB Dual Duty rims, and new (actually new) Vee Rubber “Mission” tires don’t seem to work together. I don’t know if the fault is with the rim, the tire, or if they’re each slightly out of spec.
I rolled the tire in the neighborhood after installation, reinstalled it, it blew off, then I put the tube in another tire on another rim. Twenty minutes after installation, the tube exploded like the Death Star. This Stan’s-filled tube off another wheel stayed on fine for two days and 1.25 rides.
Riding up a steep short climb, traversing to work with my 36×17 gear, I suddenly was rolling on the rim! My first thought was “I am SO HAPPY this didn’t happen going DOWN this road!”
I rode home super slowly, after my riding friends bailed me out with CO2 (I bought a box of cartridges online as soon as I got back to my desk).
My plan is to replace the WTB Dual Duty with a Velocity Blunt 35 (same ERD), and throw the tire in the trash. I’m scared of both of them, now!
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Homemade Funnel for Stan’s Sealant
I cut an empty plastic bottle down, threaded on the Stan’s injector cap, and then snipped the end of the cap to match the outer diameter of the valve stem. I removed the valve core, and used the outside of the stem to cut threads in the inside of the funnel.
Match it up, measure Stan’s Sealant into the funnel part, and you’re done. Easy.
