thumpin’
Blog
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The death of fixie cultcha?
http://www.junkyrustybikes.net/specials.php
http://www.irocycle.com/wheelshubsandrims.aspxI bought two rims and spoke sets from IRO – $15 rims and $16 black spokes. I loves me the cheap wheel goods. I haven’t even opened the box yet, but I’m looking at putting together a dynamo front and either a Sturmey 3 speed fixed (S3X) or new S2C kickback with no coaster brake. I resent the coaster brake on my Sachs Automatic. It’s heavy, and I can’t kick the cranks around to optimum position.
I did open the Iro box – one of the rims had a couple shiny inch-and-a-half scratches in the anodizing. I need to see if that’s expected with these $15 rims, or what. There’s gotta be a reason they’re cheap, right?
I hope you all checked out Velo Cult’s S3X build of Chris Kostman’s Raleigh Competition…
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Bike mudflaps made from leather shoe tongues
You know you’re old when… you aren’t in shape to work on bikes, let alone ride them. My back hurts!
I just put in a few hours working on my fenders. I moved the stays much further down towards the ends of the fenders (47mm from the ends). I also switched up to double daruma eyelets on each stay, instead of singles. Total crap job on drilling the holes, but I don’t care. I’m just glad no one’s paying me to butcher their $100 Honjos, and I’ve dropped out of the competition for “prettiest Quickbeam ever.”
The cool part was installing mudflaps made out of the tongues of leather hi-tops. They’re green, from my old PF Flyers, and well worn. I have a pair of Keen’s tongues for the black bike.
I cut the tongues out way longer, including part of the rubber toe cap, but ended up making it shorter to fit. I washed the mudflaps in the sink with hot, soapy water, and dried them flat to remove the fold. There’s still a crease there, but I like it.
The mudflaps look good, but my tires are flat-out too fat for fenders on this bike. Simply dropping down to 37mm tires would make all the difference. And maybe without vestigial knobs that grab the front mudflap on big bumps.
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Retrotec step-through
Retrotec step-through , originally uploaded by retrotec&ingliscycles.
Swoopy!
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Roseland’s Hunter at Lake Ilsanjo
photo.JPG, originally uploaded by RoselandCycles.
Another lazy blog post where I filch inspiring pictures from my Flickr friends. This is my ideal style of bike, though. The stem is key.
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singular Gryphon
DSC_4699_1183_resize, originally uploaded by krashkatze.
I like this bike. It’s like a steel production version of a Matt Chester.
And Chester’s bikes and the Gryphon are both spawnlings of Charlie Cunningham. I shouldn’t have to mention that, but I’ve talked to people who love Flogging Molly and never heard of the Pogues…
If you disagree with that assessment, bring it.
Speaking of Matt Chester, it looks like he failed to renew his 700see.com domain.
Oops. I hates me the linkfarmer registrars.
I feel like I’ve sent Matt a couple of envelopes over the last 10 years with $5 inside for the kickoff issue of his 700see blog. Maybe it’s time to send another one… Or the first one. Jeremy has the link to Matt’s new blog: http://5metresofdevelopment.blogspot.com/
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Bike Snob – livin’ the dream
This is a dream I had, not an actual interview. It seems more like it could be the Bike Snob’s dream, though, not mine.
I was interviewing him at his home, which was a vast open loft apartment with polished concrete floors, a cafe area near the minimal-but-luxurious sleeping area, multiple cool cars and a motorcycle in a workshop area next to the cafe.
We were conducting the interview across the hood of a ’62 Chyrsler Imperial, using it as a desk. When I asked the Bike Snob how it felt “to have so much awesome stuff,” he wriggled like a puppy. That was a little weird, even in the dream. Apparently he liked it.
There was also, suddenly, a bar with high-backed wooden booths and a stage for a band, which was setting up.
He was the lead singer and guitarist, and before he got up to play, he named off the five songs (ever) that had a heavier sound than his band. I had never heard of any of them. There was a big aluminum slider switch on the wall labeled with those same songs and band names, with the switch at the topmost position. I slid it down to the second from lowest and went to get my bike while the band started up.
I was packing my notebooks and camera into my bike bag and said, “now I have to ride my bike back to America… with no lights.”
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Nitto Paperclips? Ha!
Awesome, courtesy of RivvyRock’s boredom. And flickrstream.
Nitto Paperclips? Ha!, originally uploaded by RivvyRock. -
funky bottom bracket removal
My bossfriend came over last night to borrow a bike tool I didn’t have.
His Schwinn hybrid has a bottom bracket (the spindle your cranks attach to) with a weird raised center portion about the same shape as a Vienna Finger. He could get a big Crescent wrench on there, but it kept slipping off every 1/4 turn.
After about 20 minutes of rooting through my tooldrifts, I remembered a Sheldon trick for removing singlespeed freewheels – put the tool on the freewheel, then the nut on the axle, keeping the freewheel tool from popping off under torque.
Ah… what if you put the crank back on the spindle, to keep the wrench in place? Worked genius.
I should’ve gotten a picture of the bearings when he got them out! The cage (cage?) was flattened, ripped, and wrapped around the spindle. Nasty.
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Lighting woes (soon to be woe-less)
For the last month or so I haven’t been riding to work or for pleasure after dark, because my main light was out. I bought new bulbs and a new lens, but it didn’t fix it.
Today I put the word out to the Rivendell group, and got nice deal on two replacement E6 halogen lights. One for the Quickbeam, to get it rolling with dual lights again, and the other for my wife’s Steyr.
I have an old bottle dynamo for her bike, but I’d need to gen up a mounting bracket. The ones I’ve seen are fairly sucktacular.
I want to switch over to an LED light like the IQ Cyo for my dynamo hub, but I have a bag of 3 watt halogen bulbs, and a (fairly small) number of bikes, so I think I’ll stick with the halogens for the next year. Maybe then get a Cyo for the Quickbeam and move the E6s to the less-used bikes.
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carradice bags under a porteur rack
I like the look of this a lot. It does look like the rack could be a lot narrower and work the same way, since few people porteurate newpapers anymore.
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Renaissanced Bicycles Google Groups
I’ve taken over some moderation duties at the “Renaissanced Bicycle google group.” It’s a group to discuss and show off your renaissanced bike projects. On the top of the right >> column is a signup form if you’d like to subscribe. There are some great discussions already (deep Raleigh info), but to really make the group great, we need your help. Please join us and share your own Renaissanced Bike projects!
Here’s Renaissance Bicycles’ explanation of the term “Renaissanced Bicycle:
A “renaissanced” bike is an old bike updated with new components. It may be to get them back on the road, or to fit the needs of the rider better. In some cases the old stuff is just crap (steel rims), and the renewal makes a safer bike. In other cases you might have a fine older frame, and either you like modern components, or you have no desire to camp out on eBay for 6 months to get the ‘period correct’ parts.A renaissanced bicycle is meant to be enjoyed.
Bryan at Renaissanced Bicycles started the group, and is now focusing on other things. He’s asked me and Montclair Bobby B to take up the torch. To keep the embers burning, so to speak.
To fan the flames a little, and extend the metaphor, here is one of Bobby’s Bikes, a cruiser-style Rockhopper with full Pimp Kit that he built up in 2010:
Blue Rocky, originally uploaded by montclairbobbyb.
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Finally! (New dirt drop bar)
Finally!, originally uploaded by brantrichards.Well look at that! Silver, angled hoods, long ends… I like it! The Ragley “Luxy” is Brant (Midge Bar) Richard’s new drop bar – see more pictures on flickr or at his Shedfire site.
In stock right now at Chain Reaction bicycles. Well dang. Black is $53, silver is $60. Postage is 8 bucks. $8.02, actually. Weird numbers. The Bontrager would look better with the cheaper, blacker, bars, I think…
Top View:
Black view:
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Painted stem to match the Bontrager
I’ve had drop bars (On-One’s Midge bars) on my mountain bike for a couple of years. Miles at Roseland Cycles (now in Berkeley) sent me this stem, along with some good advice and a CAD drawing of my ideal stem (52°x180mm?). I used it in its shiny silver state, then gave it to a friend and started using an extender and a shorty stem.
Recently my friend gave me back the stem, along with the bike it was attached to. Weird. I may take the sculpture he likes off of Etsy and give it to him on Boxing Day. The bike probably won’t work for my ten year old just yet, but it’s rolling again. When it gets honed a little, I’ll try to cover it in a post. It’s been a busy Fall – I can either mess about with bikes, or blog about messing about with bikes, but not both.
Something I did manage to fit in was painting this stem, since painting bike parts is 9/10 having the space and paint, and 1/10 not really caring how it turns out. I stuck a garden stake in one hole, put the whole thing in a box and shot it with Zinsser 1-2-3 primer. Over a couple days I gave it a couple of coats, then got on it with a can of “Color|Decor” blue 527796 (or cds24) I got at my Wilco Farm Store (Ace Hardware). It’s made by GPM, which has the worst website I’ve seen in a while. Anyway, it matches the front of a 1999 Bontrager Privateer pretty well. Better than the Rock Shox SID fork, at any rate. When that looked pretty well covered, not too runny and not too dusty, I gave it a good coat of Krylon triple-thick crystal Clear Glaze. Probably a triple coat.
So there it is. A little more reach to the bar, and a fairly chunky stem, but the color makes me happy.
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Honjo Mudguards Fender Catalog
Honjo Mudguards Fender Catalog, originally uploaded by boxdogbikes.
I can’t believe so few people have been looking at this. Very high on the coolness meter, courtesy of Box Dog Bikes. Go look at it. My metal fenders are all Velo-Orange, but Honjo is legit.
I like the H47, a pretty, fluted 48mm fender. And the H79m, its burlier brother.
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local velomobile
mcminnville velomobile, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.I saw this fully faired bike at Tommy’s, when the builder brought it to show off to Mike. This is a local, homebuilt velomobile, built around a tadpole trike. It has an electric assist, regenerative braking, and GPS. The interior shot shows his waterbottle, pump, dashboard and instrumentation.
The raised portion behind the driver’s head hinges up to access the trunk (a storage box). Think how much stuff you could fit inside that shell with some well-placed packs!
The only improvement I’d imagine would be fenders on the wheels, so they didn’t throw road spray up inside the machine. Might not be a problem in practice, but this is Oregon…
The whole shell was made of pink foam, cut into shape and glued. You can see some of that in the picture of the inside of the trunk lid.
