Bike Tinker

Tag: 3-speed

  • Cannondale crime bike

    Cannondale crime bike

    Bike runs drives and stops but the shifting isn’t great. Halfway through the build I thought it wasn’t even possible with this crank but I took a break and then it was all fine.

    Kind of sexy in the tall weeds.

    Gearing is a 3×1, Jimmy Warren style from the old Riv Reader. Will at Rivendell builds “triple singlespeeds” this way.

    24/36/46 chainrings and a 17t cog on a 26”x54mm tire gives 37, 56, and 71 gear inches.

    I was really lucky to find an $8 17y Surly cog at Community yesterday.

    Jimmy said to use an old derailleur, and when I tried with a singlespeed tensioner, sure enough no good. I ran the H and L screws all the way in, and used the “road” end off a double-ended brake cable to set the pulley wheels under the cog. I recall people swap the “guide” pulley for the, uh, other pulley but I haven’t yet.

    This was the less nice junk drawer derailleur but the other 600 had a stuck H limit. Which probably wouldn’t matter here…

    Brakes brake great! I had to true the rear wheel for the XT parallel-push not to drag, but… true wheel! Avid SD in the front. Kooka levers from the Cannondale as donated. I love the minimal shape, but I was worried they wouldn’t pull enough cable. 35mm from the anchor to the pivot is the lower limit of V-brake cable pull. The opposite: they’re awesome.

    Kooka!

    The pedals are from the junk drawer. Someone gave me some mixed pedals with cages in various states of wreckage. I sawed on cage to match another one and mounted them on the best bodies to make fake Suntour “track” pedals like Bridgestone(?) spec’d back in the ‘80s. They match the wear and color of the bike, and someone could have conceivably done the same thing 30 years ago, not in 2025.

    Suntour XC Comp pedals chopped and channeled with Suntour XC Pro cranks and Suntour “Accushift” rings.

    Build pics:

    Mockup with Java Boy bars, mullet setup, 90% clean frame. Fresh BB, hottest headset

    Crizzle called this PW PROTO 1 which is very funny for those who know. Then he gave me a 1 1/4” King headset, black on black sotto voce, like the nicest headset that exists.

    Daaang son – oversized King headset

    Hilariously I was so stoked to find a 1 1/4” fork with a long enough steerer that… I bought a 700c (Rodriguez tandem?) fork instead of a 26”. Right there in the description, 100% my fault. Then I missed out on a 26” Pepperoni fork.

    (more…)
  • Angelina’s new bike

    Angelina’s new bike

    I got a new Trek Belleville women’s bike from Tommy’s Bike Shop in McMinnville at a nice discount, with part of the price traded for improvements to their website (not implemented yet, in case you were wondering).


    Angelina hasn’t had a new bike since she was 11. She’s been riding the same Goodwill-sourced Steyr mixte for 14 years or so, and had nixed the idea of buying new as philosophically repugnant, except that “This bike is so pretty!” It’s also recyclable, and made OF recycled material, supposedly. And it’s pretty. And she doesn’t drive.

    I like it because it comes equipped with front and rear generator lights, fenders and racks. All the wiring runs inside the tubes – the fork, the rack the main tubes, under the fenders. My bikes don’t have internal wiring! I also really like the welded mounting tab for the front rack, which I’ve never seen before. It’s clever and strong, and it takes the brakes right out of the rack-mount equation.

    I’m a huge fan of custom bikes and bike-makers, and it looks like the Belleville designer(s) are too. I only ever see painted and integrated stem and bars on show bikes. Since most people never change either the stem or the bars, it makes just as much sense to make them all one piece. The bars need to be raised ~2″ to match her old bike’s setup. I only hope there are pretty spacers I can use! I’d like one tall blue one, or three 1/2″ ones in light blue, red and brown like the decorative bands that accent the bike here and there.

    I raised the stem with normal ugly spacers and a longer bolt. Eric of Winter Bicycles pointed out that the stem is a lever on the steerer, and shouldn’t come above the top of the steerer tube, but I did it anyway. If Angelina crashes and dies, he can say “I told you so.”

    I also ran the wire through the guide tube – you have to fold the spades away from each other to get them through the tube.

    There were only a couple of things I would have designed differently, and a couple of assembly details I’ll redo (light wiring doesn’t go through a wiring tube, and I prefer as wide a rack mount as possible).

    Design Detail 1

    The front rack struts are tubes that are open at the top, but closed at the bottom! I think they’ll fill up with Oregon rainwater in short order. I plan to plug the tops before that happens. The outer tube is actually for the headlight wiring. Oops.

    Design Improvement 2

    Rear fender woggles a bit. A support tab from the rear rack to the top of the rear fender would be ideal. I plan to make a U-bracket from the rack bolts to the fender.

    And the pedal bearings are really crunchy. White rubber block pedals would be the bomb for this bike.

    Other than those tiny nits, this is a beautiful bike.