LDs, originally uploaded by Joel Greenblatt | Clockwork Bikes.
Ibis LD stem replicas! From Clockwork Bikes… $200, with a choice of clamp size and style (2-bolt or 1-bolt), color, etc. These look great, and if you click through to Joel’s photostream (click the pictures) you can get his contact info and see the stems being made.
Curtis Inglis-Retrotec-2-40, originally uploaded by BikePortland.org.
main pic from BikePortland. I love the screenprinted decks to death. It is a nice match for the blue bike. Too cool. Curtis puts the Tec in Retrotec.
Update! This is NOT the Oregon Manifest bike… it’s Curtis’ wife’s town bike. The OM bike was inside the car the whole time! Maybe this is why my career in industrial espionage never took off.
This was parked across the street from my work today. Pretty sure it’s the Inglis entry for the Oregon Manifest Challenge. Internal 8 speed, dyno/drumbrake front hub with a clever ‘slot’ for the reaction arm to make it simple to remove the front wheel.
Seeing this made my day! I brought Ari and Mitch over separately to be amazed. They were.
This looks so cool to me. Even fatter than the Pugsley. Click it. You know you want to.
S3X busted nut., originally uploaded by BikeTinker.The wheel was slipping in the dropouts (yeah, yeah, “fork ends”) after I changed a flat, so I added two links to the chain and cranked down extra hard. Two days later I noticed the end had cracked, but it still shifted.
Yesterday, at the bottom of the hill on Willis Road, it snapped entirely. The top two gears still worked, but the low gear only freewheels. I climbed the hill anyway, and picked about two gallons of blackberries for jam. Then I went to the Hotel Oregon and put my feet up.
Angelina has ridden this bike for about 13 years. She’s never had a drivers’ license, so this has gotten a lot of useful use, and a lot of useful upgrades.
50cm frame, $120 (shipping is extra, but I can deliver it locally from Portland to Salem). If you’re interested, please email me at philip (at) biketinker (dot) com, or use the contact form.
The tires are dirty, but have plenty of tread. Your bike shop probably carries this size of tire (EA3, ISO 590, or 1 3/8″), so don’t worry.
These are the first wheels I ever built. They’ve held up really well for 7 years or so. I may never have tried wheelbuilding at all, except for these. I kept replacing the horrible galvanized spokes on the original wheelset, until the last time, I started out replacing five and ended up replacing TWELVE SPOKES. I figured “if I can do that, I can build a wheel.” It ain’t rocket science. Rocket science probably isn’t that hard, either.
It’s a nice bike; it rides great. Highly highly recommended with the Bobike front-mount childs’ seat. My kid spent three years in one on this bike, riding 100s of miles. Put some panniers or fold-out baskets on the back, and you can shop the hell out of the Farmer’s Market.
A kind reader pointed out that Angelina wrote a blog post about this bike, under the title “Favorite Things: My Steyr Bicycle.“
bontrager bar tape, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.
I’m really enjoying the ‘halfsies’ bar taping. I like it. It’s extra-festive. One roll of orange Newbaum’s, one roll of blue, with a little of each left over.
1999 Bontrager Privateer, On-One Midge bars, and Suntour bar-end shifters. I like the stem color, but it’s the chunkiest thing on the whole bike.
If I find a more graceful stem with similar rise, I’ll paint it blue, too.
I’m not just a bike nerd – I’m a Rivendell bike nerd. Grant Petersen, the owner of Rivendell, just put up a blog post that could be called “in defense of double top tubes.”
Some people like the second top tube, some people hate it. Some people could go either way. I’ve been looking at them for a while, thinking it would be a great place to put a frame bag. I made a little mock-up, and I’d say that the idea of a nice bag between the two tubes makes me like the extra “undertube” a lot more.
“Max’s” new bike
, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.So far, it’s set up for me, while I “iron out the kinks.” This bike is really nice. I want to drop the levers a quarter inch, and run the cables higher on the bars, but it’s pretty well dialed. Dingle setup, 36×14 and 32×18. Flared drops. Flat pedals. I haven’t tried the low gear, but I bought a new ring just for it. Coasting is actually pretty fun!
I like cassette hubs, and I like disc brakes. And threadless headsets. The two-tone bar wrap is also pleasing me a lot. You’ll see that again in a little bit.
It’s a Gary Fisher Utopia hybrid my friend Jim (coincidentally a fan of CycloFiend’s bike gallery) gave me for my 10 year old. I thought (and Max still thinks), “Dude, it’s a grown-up bike!” But at 43cm, it’s the smallest 700c bike I can find, and the same size my LBS recommended for a kid’s first ‘full size’ bike. The only issue is getting the bars low enough, but a short stem, inverted, and the seat slammed all the way, puts the bars and saddle in the same relative position as his Redline Junior.
I replaced the Metro shock with a rigid Kona Project 2 fork, and got some 42cm Salsa Woodchippers from a friend. The bartape is Newbaum’s cloth tape, from Rivendell.
So far the kid is sticking with the Redline Junior BMX bike he’s had since he was 5. That works for me, since I haven’t ridden another bike since I set up the bars. Stop me before I put a rack on it!
I was looking at Goeland bikes and trailers on EBykr, and saw an ad for the Zigo bike stroller/bike bike. At first I was irritated by the fit, stylish, child-portaging package. I don’t like strollers, and I’m not (that) fit or (all that) stylish. But I am fascinated by the concept and the technology. I think it’s a cool design, and I’d like to see one in person.
You can convert the Zigo from a child-truck trike, to a separated jogging stroller and regular (ish) bike. It seems very useful and cool, if you don’t already have a bike to hang a Bobike seat on. My kid is done with the “kid as cargo” stage of his life, but a modular utility bike would be fantastic. A more open-ended setup, or set of modules that extend the function beyond child-carrying would really put this over the top.
During and after your five years of kid use, it would be fantastic to use the bike for local errands that might take a car, otherwise.
Ride to the nursery for bags of soil, starts, etc. Maybe even tools? Use the detachable part as a garden cart when you get home. You could use it for runs to the U-pick vegetable farm in canning season, and roll or ride right into the fields.
A grocery hauler you can use in the store as a shopping cart. Also gives you a shopping cart at the farmers market. You have the advantage of in-store smugness: people would know you biked to shop, even if they didn’t see you in the parking lot.
Bare bones, but with an awning that could unfold into a tarp for protecting larger loads. Attachment points for dividers or bins, depending on what you deliver. Mailmen could use them, if they had a lower storage and upper ‘next deliveries’ area. Square bottom footprint for square boxes.
My friends Mitch and Ari have a fantastic farmers market stall setup with a custom rickshaw and a trailer. They built these things so they could ride to the farmers market, and pop everything open into a stall. From the customer side, they don’t even look like bikes.
Something like their setup would be cool (and niche-y): hard shell boxes with good storage that fold out extra display shelves, and allow for an awning or umbrella to be raised. You could even detach the bike and use it as a pedestrian-powered pushcart.
Attach a power-takeoff to the drivetrain and make smoothies to sell from your little stand…
Go check out the Zigo blog to see how they work for real people: http://blog.myzigo.com/
boneshaker, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.
Here’s Mitch on Jason (Red Fox Bakery)’s boneshaker. He seems to be a natural.
I rode it. These things are really frickin’ hard to ride. When I got out in the street I knew I’d done something wrong. The thing wanted to throw itself under a car. I stayed in my lane through sheer force of refusing-to-die. There’s an anti-intuitive steering thing going on that I can’t quite figure out. It’s a little bit like a bad dream where you’re running but can’t get away.
You look at the oncoming car, but turning away from it makes you head toward it! Agh! Maybe the weirdness is related to the vertical steering axis, or the fact that you’re pedaling force is connected directly to your steering… Don’t know. Hated it. I had to jump off in the street and walk it back.
Jason told me that Red Fox does a Friday night pizza party at the Saturday market cob oven. Free get-together, and we’re talking about having a bicycle show there.
Friday Night Bike Party in McMinnville?
Kevin Dwyer of Salt Lake City designed and built this amazing bamboo and carbon mixter. He sent me the pictures a while ago, and I went looking for them tonight to show them off.
He says, “Attached are a couple of photos of my last frame. The handlebar and leather grips are also custom by me. The frame has structural carbon inlays on the down and seat tubes in a sweetpea vine fashion. The dual top tube bridge is reinforced with tarantula web (no shit!) composite.”
“The inlays are “keyed” into the bamboo creating a superstructure, dramatically stiffening the bamboo. Also, they are cross laminated with the carbon fiber at the joints. They vary in depth, fiber orientation, length and width depending on application, with some, but not most, going all the way through. The inlays were sketched/transferred to the surface then carved out with a variety of tools (mostly power) and methods.”
Even aside from being handmade and innovative, it’s a nicely built-up mixte with a unique look. Caliper front, disc rear with an internal gear hub, it might take you a minute to register that it’s made out of bamboo.
More pictures and specs are on Drunk Cyclist: http://drunkcyclist.com/2010/01/26/i-got-ya-bamboozle-right-here-sweatpea/
Kevin’s blog is here: Spoke(n) about Bicycles
Ah, the smell of new steel on the breeze!
Rivendell has Simpleones, and they’re building them up with a choice of Cheapskate and Fancypants kit. I love Rivendell, because they actually call them that.
quickbeam ride with the dog, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.
The dog and I went out for a steep offroad knockabout with the S3X hub.
I pulled the splined 15t cog off, and substituted a Surly 17/21 dingle cog. I intended to use both gears, but ended up sticking with the 42 tooth ring and the 17 tooth cog.
I had some slipping in the lowest gear that seemed to be related to shifter slippage. When it happened, I noticed the cable was very slack in the high gear. I tightened up the cable (a simple twist of the connecting rod), and the problem seemed to disappear.
More research is in order.
The Belleville turned out to be a success! It’s dialed in for fit, and function, with a couple of “form” tradeoffs*. Angelina says it’s heavier than the old bike, but “feels sturdier,” and she loves the dynamo lights. It’s a huge relief not to worry about batteries, or turning the light on. I’ve seen her rolling along at dusk, too, and they’re pretty visible.
Despite all the goodness, Angelina kept riding her old bike, because it had the baskets. She uses the bike as transportation, so she needs to bring things home. I moved the Wald folding baskets to the new bike, which was good, but she didn’t like having to bungie things onto the front rack. I balked at moving the front basket, though, because it didn’t fit the rack or the bike’s aesthetic. After she threatened to wire the old basket on with whatever twine or baling wire she could find, I went to Goodwill, determined to get something basket-like. Wicker picnic baskets (hmm, not bad), heavy storage basket, suitcase… and this. It looks like it might have had a laundry-room or dishwasher function, but it fits the rack almost exactly, and is cut down in back to go right under the bar! Perfect. Plenty of room for a half rack of beer. It even had wire “ears” on the bottom I used to attach it to the rack , through the magic of ‘bending.’ One broke, so a single hoseclamp replaced it.
The stock saddle turned out to be really comfortable, but not at first. I flipped the saddle clamp around, so the post is in front of the clamp, instead of behind. This gives more setback, but also more leverage on the saddle to knock it out of angle, so you have to tighten it like mad. I’m cautious doing that, though, since I snapped the bolt on the Brooks 2-rail clamp (the Brooks bolt had two weak, flat sections, which is really stupid), and had to replace it with a much sturdier Chinese part.
I was a little worried about installing the repaired Brooks, since the Trek Eco saddle has been so comfortable. But I did the work, and it’s a great seat, and I can always put the Eco seat back on. This Brooks has the same flipped clamp, which gives 1/2″ more setback, which surprised me.
The grips are hard plastic, held on with screw-clamp ends, and have to be rotated on the bars so the indentations to line up naturally with the hand. One almost came off in an intersection, and the cap part disappeared, so I replaced it with a cork. And tightened up the little allen bolt. I may leave the Steyr out in the sun, so I can slide the old grips off and use them on the Belleville.
I bumped up the handlebar height about an inch, with spacers. Chris King red, brown and blue spacers would be dynamite, but black goes with everything.
The cranks are 175mm Ritcheys she’s been riding for a few years on her old bike, and she said they made a HUGE difference in comfort. The tread is also much narrower, and the left arm almost hits the kickstand. I think the chainring’s the same size. The white pedals are borrowed from another Austrian-built 3-speed my friend asked me to fix up for him. All I’ve done so far is pull the front wheel off, spin it, wince, and put it down. And steal the pedals.
It looks like I need to get some zip ties to corral that wild shifter cable. There are brazed-on lugs for the zip-ties, which is pretty cool.
I took these pictures with my new camera and old, old lens. Some are nicely focused, some not. More practice!
*The baskets are dumpy, but the cranks and (stolen) pedals are prettier.
