Successful frame repair
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: tales from the garage
10-13-05: It's thurday. Modified my Fujifixed frame successfully! Some ultraweld liquid metal, sandpaper, and primer, plus silver spray, did a ton of good. The brake bridge had a hole in it which kept getting filled with road grime and spray fromt he rear tire. Concerned about rust over the long hual even with regular post-ride cleaning, I decided to fill it in.

Went off without a hitch and I am so looking forward to riding this thing!
-- Elvis

(pic below shows the bike except for the patched rear brake bridge which was dine right after I took this photo)

The Cops Stole My Bike (and other tales from the street)
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
10-11-05:

Imagine you lock your bike, go into a store, and come out. As you emerge you find someone using a powersaw to cut the lock off your two-wheeled ride. Chances are it's a bicycle thief, right?
Not in New York. According to a page 4 article in the New York Sun, NYC police had nothing better to do this past week then drive around Brooklyn stealing bikes.
Said the paper: "Police confiscated more than two dozen locked-up bicycles ...after local businesses complained that large lcusters of bikes around the Bedford Avenue subway station were impeding sidewalk traffic".

According to the Sun, police used everything including circular saws (!) to destroy bike locks and remove the parked bikes. And though some bikes were locked to MTA property near the station entrence -- which is appparently illegal -- the vast majority of the bikes taken "did not appear to be impeding traffic".
The absurdity of this act is surpassed only by the stupidity and outrageousness of it. Even if the structural integrity of the bike is not rendered useless -- a dented cut or cracked frame -- or the bike otherwise destroyed, the damage -- and potential damage -- is astounding. The police who cut the bike locks with power saws and threw the bikes into a van are unlikely to care about any damage they do to the bikes. And the bicycles' owners are unlikely to be reimbursed for any damage.

This sort of thing would make sense if the bikes had been left abandaned for weeks. Maybe even days. But we are talking about bicycles that are simply locked up. Imagine coming out of the store and finding that your car's windows had been smashed and it hauled away because someone thought parking it there might obstruct traffic? At least when they tow automobiles they don't damage them deliberately -- and they don't tow them unless they are illegally parked. Many of the seized bicycles were locked to posts -- a practice the NYC government claims is illegal, but which is actually advocated by the Police Department, in a brochure urging citizens to "lock your bike" to reduce theft.

This comes on the heals of a court ruling in which Manhattan Judge William Pauley III ruled just a month past, that seizing bikes at the monthly "critical mass" rides through NYC were illegal seizures.

Thankfully, not everyone is cheering this nonsense. Someone ont he city council introduced a bil this past summer which would require the city to give 36 hours notice before confiscating "unattended bicycles", according to the New york Sun.

Even here, though, the wording is a blatant attempt to make the cyclist look culpable. Parked bikes are not abandoned bikes -- locking a bicycle is not leaving it "unattended". The word conjurs up images of careless cyclists ditching their bikes. Clearly the outrageous seizures wouldn't be a big deal if the bikes were abandoned. So why use such wording?

Well, is a locked bike "unattended"? If so, does that mean that when you park your $50,000 car and lock the doors, it is sitting "unattended", fair game for anyone who wants to damage it or haul it off?

Meanwhile, here's one cyclist hoping this nonsense does not spread to New Jersey.

-- Elvis

Bad Roads and Bad Cops
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
10-05-05: Riding home last night was another near death experience. The idiot PSE&G people have been tearing up the street with a criss-cross maze of patchwork, laying pipes and doing a crappy -- downright dangerous -- job of patching the road. But they usually didn't leave two foot trenches in the middle of the street.

Well, turns out they did.

Coming down the dark hill -- the streetlight doesn't work -- the rear tire of my Fuji Fix made a sound like a bomb going off somewhere under the rear axle. Pissed off and worried about damage, I kept control of the bike and slowed, preparing to stop when I got to the bottom and check for damage -- a broken rim, spoke, or flattened tire.

Just as I got done cursing the idiot that left a two-foot wide and nearly six inch deep trench across the road, unmarked with cones or anything, where there were no lights, the bike launched itself over the second tranch. It was all I could do to keep control of the bike.

For now, there's no damage. But the Mavic Open Pro rims, though sturdy, were not intended for dukes-of-hazzard style riding more suited to a BMX bike!
It is only a matter of time under these circumstances till something goes.

Here's the big joke: Someone suggested I report the unmarked bomb craters to the police who could issue tickets for not marking them with cones, etc. The joke is, there were two policemen there during the day when the construction was ongoing. Woulda' been nice if they did their job...

-- Elvis

Stung
Mood:  caffeinated
10-04-05: Riding yesterday was so much fun.. for the most part. My friend Patty and her geared Raleigh; me on my FujiFix. We only did about 10 miles, maybe, but it was so relaxing...

Riding through the next town over, we stopped at a park, and noticed a dirt trail. Following it, we walked, then rode. My Fuji Fix was built up as a fixed gear touring bike -- I built it specifically for the 5 Boro, which is why it originally had 2 brakes; 35,000 people on the Varizano Narrow's bridge gives one pause.

But I now realize that I didn't need the rear brake any more than I did on my other fixed conversions -- and that many of the same qualities that make the bike a good all rounder for the road make it good for slow-paced, liesurely offroad cruises, save for the narrow (23c) tires.

Emerging from the woods, we headed home, when it happened. I rode into a bug at about 15-20 mph. Not just any bug. A wasp of some sort. It stung the insdie of the lower left lip, and as I plucked it out and my face swelled up like elephant man, I tried to find the stinger. No dice.

Talking with Patty I rushed off ahead to get home, riding like a madman. Except for the suburban environment I felt like one of those mad rushing bike messengers, tearing through the streets to try and get home fast as the poison made half my face go numb and I started frothing at the mouth.

I was almost home when I came to a T intersection. A green van sat there in the middle of the street, no turn signal. I didn't know which way to pass him on, left or right, but I couldn't wait; my lip was beginning to burn so bad my eyes watered. "Jesus chris get outa the street!" I yelled as I blew past the van, which i saw was sitting idle even though there was no oncoming traffic. Mother f-er was probably lost. Or asleep.

Finally I made it home, and some ice and a few painkillers did the trick. Today it's almost normal; very little pain. But thinking back I think I set a new speed record for those last 2 miles.

Reflecting on the unpleasant end to an otherwise pleasant ride, I must thank years or riding, off and on, for my lack of a crash. When injured or in pain our conscious mind leaps away and we often go back to instinctive knowledge -- epsecially when moving at high speed. What I've picked up over the years about riding has, for the most part, become instinctive. i can slow my fixed gear via resistance braking without consciously resisting the urge to coast. I can ride one-handed if need be. I know how far to lean into turns without going over.

Thanks to this, I got home safely. So did my bike. And thanks to the wasp, that ride will always be a memorable one, especially those last tearing 2 miles of pain.

Some would say it isn't worth it to keep riding after such an episode. I got right back on my bike and rode to work.

-- Elvis

More anti-bike Madness: When will it end?!
More anti-bike nonsense: Will this madness never end?
Read something the other day -- scary how close it mirrors the run-in I had this morning with two pukin' SUV captains...

According to a fixed gear bicycle rider from out west, who was on the ride, a San Francisco (9-30-05)Critical Mass ride turned into a brawl. Rider was attacked in an altercation with two pedestrians in business suits. Word was the bicyclists were jokingly saying things as they passed. The Suit took the banter seriously and kicked the guy off his bike and started beating him, fleeing only after confronted by a crowd of other riders...

The moral? Some people just get "set off". Usually it's bad drivers who don't like you pointing out the errors of their dangerous ways. This is different because it's a pedestrian.

We don't know who began the banter... maybe the pedestrians were angry at waiting for the bikes to pass and said something? However, if the Crit Mass riders were taunting these folks..... Makes no diff. The pedestrian was a nut job, flipping a guy off a bike cause he says something in passing is not a normal reaction -- it's the mark of a potential psycho. This suit is the kinda person who will one day go berserk and just start offing people cause they gave him the wrong happy meal at MickeyD's.

However we can't usually tell these types by looking at them so I pretty much try to keep to myself on my bike beyond a few mild gestures. Now if a car actually hit me [read, I couldn't dodge it] i would be pissed, cause it's happened in the past.

Verdict: The guy in the suit needs to take a pill, be booked for assault and cool his jets in a cell next to a very large fellow -- maybe that scary-lookin' guy from Oregon who ran over the Granny?

Maybe the Crit Mass riders who were acting like cowboys come in from a trail drive need to cool their beligerance a mite, too.

But it's a funny world. Drivers in SUVs shout crap at em all the time. Some scream and try to startle me into crashing. I don't pull them outa their stopped vehicles when I catch up to them at the light and beat them into a pulp. Why should nonriders, be they drivers or pedestrians (as in this case) be any less tolerant of bicyclists?

If the idiot in the SUV can shout remarks at others on the street, why can't Critical Mass guys on bikes? I'm not saying it's nice to do, or even wise -- but please don't be all in a phoney rage over it. You do it all the time in your SUV, dude... come one! Let's have a little common sense, double standards are just so Animal Farm --- kind of like that guy in the suit's behavior.

Look, Cars may be the bulk of the vehicles but the roads ARE multi use [bikes, cars, pedestrians] and there will be idiots in every group. As cyclists we see quite a few bad or dangerous drivers, careless pedestrians and even other cyclists who are reckless (listen in descending order). Unless they get violent we don't get violent. It isn't worth it...

IF I can restrain myself from turning into Rambo because a driver yells at me on my bike, why should this Pedestrian Suit go into Berserker mode because some guy on a bike said something to him?

This goes beyond a double standard, the guy was a time bomb waiting to happen. Was the cyclist smart or polite? No. Maybe he was even asking for a fight... but guess what? This is a civilized country. We don't go around beating the snott out of people even if they are bein' rude.

But the double standard is there... To get an idea of how it would play in the media [assuming the local SF media covered the incident?], consider: Even here in the fixed gear bike world, most people here are looking at the incident as the cyclist's fault -- "he started it" syndrome. Maybe he did start it -- who knows? But....


....what I know is, if I went ballistic, and hauled some driver out of his window at a stoplight and brained him with a brick because he had said something unkind, I sure as heck know *I* would be labeled the bad guy -- not the driver with a fractured skull. How is it any different here? Because the rude guy who was attacked was on a bike?
What times we live in.

So all this is going through my head as I am going thru the light and the two SUV -- one up the other's @ss -- turn right into me. Fortunately my fixed gear allowed for enough control to avoid a crash... but it was close!
And one more reminder that: Our society takes people that could never pass the background check for a handgun and sets them loose on the streets in a 3,000 lb GUIDED BULLET! Jumping in front of the bullet isn't the solution, nor is smashing it (tho if it hit me I probably would), but... They need to realize there are other folks on the road beside for them.

People need to take a pill and chill. Cool your jets, sheesh, the light will still be there if you wait and don't run folks down.

I think the in-your-face attitude of some cyclists may be part of the problem -- but also I think for most of the careless or reckless drivers it makes no diff. Certainly the pedestrians or drivers who attack cyclists (or run them over) cannot in any way claim their actions are justified by the fact that they find bicyclists "rude". You don't kill people for being rude. And anyway, many of these psycho set-off non-riders are just as rude, if not more, to others as they perceive those on bikes are to them.

As to how to handle the psycho or careless drivers, the fact remains kindness is not the answer. Saying that reacting with anger or flipping off a driver that almost killed you will only cause said driver to be more anti-bike ignores the fact that he is already irrevocably anti-bike, either out of carelessness or malice -- else he would not have nearly hit you! Such drivers are not all drivers, but those who are, simply see bikes as a nuisance regardless of how well behaved the riders are. And guess what, they ain't gonna be all nice and Mr. Roger's-like if we just smile at them and wave as they tear towards us at warp speed looking for blood on their bumper -- or simply oblivious to the danger they cause.

Mind you, I'm not saying attack the cars. Attacking people isn't the solution. But niether is gettin' run over by pretending the psycho driver problem doesn't exist.

Perhaps better police enforcement, but seeing as my run-in with the two SUV pilots happened in front of the local town hall/police station complex (at a light WITH A CAMERA!) and there was no response I fail to see this happened. The ultimate answer may just be defensive riding, awareness of one's surroundings, and, as a last resort, a real heavy bikelock...

-- Elvis

fair weather riders -- don't be one
9-30-05: Woke up this morn to find the temp. hovering around 54 degrees, but it felt like the 40's. Two layers of warm shorts, and long sleeves should make all the difference. Remarkably, I saw my older neighbor, the one who's bike I fixed up, riding around in just a sweater and pants. Hope I am that cool when I'm her age.

For now, the temperature isn't so bad. But wait til winter. -15 degree wind chill, 20 degree highs, and blowing snow will pretty much force all bicyclists inside to indoor trainers and back issues of Bicycling. However, it doesn't have to be that way. Wider tires, an easier gear, and warm @ss clathes can make all but the harshest winter days tolerable. Don't be a fair weather rider. Keep it up thru the coming cold months.

-- Elvis

Dancing with traffic
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
9-29-05: As September screeches to a halt, the leaves start falling, and the tail end of a storm [shades of the Gulf?] makes it's way across NJ, I finished fine tuning my FujiFix and took it for a spin.

The ITM bars, properly tilted, allow both nice positioning on the slope by the hood of the brake, and good use of the drops. The vinyl griptape I reused is nice and also relatively indestructible in terms of deterioration from sweat and rain. The brake cable is run from a Rt. side lever mounted on the left, so I took it off the front of the bat and ran it around the backside, then fine tuned the new cantis [NOS, outa the parts bin] I put on the bike the other day, in addition to lubing the cable/housing and the aero lever pivot to stop an annoying squeek. The result? The perfect bike for riding on all day rides, short cruises across town, going to/from work, or just riding along.

Most fixed gears are either trackbikes [or track bike clones, a la the Messenger culture] or road fitness machines. This bike is a bit of both; the one brake, fast but not over the top gearing, and the plain frame stripped of all decals but the headbadge, may seem to echo somethign of the utilitarian urban fix culture. However, the sloping top tube, dual h20 bottle cages, and cantis scream "tourer".

The bike is to me a two wheeled swiss army knife, a multipurpose vehicle. I daresay if I used the other side of the fixed wheel, installing, say, a 19 or 18t cog, all I'd need to do is flip the wheel to have an offroad worthy fix, with the addition of 32 or 35c cross tires, of course.

So how is the ride? Good. Better. Great! Each bit of tweaking paid off in improve hand position, less bakc and neck strain, more power up the hills from better seat positioning, and just plain all around handling. In the drops it shoots past parked trailers and landscrapers' trucks, busses, et al, yet cruises along effortlessly on the slope of the bars. It's stable at mad fast RPM but comfy at a slow riding-along pace.

Heading up the hill to Summit, i used resistance brakign estensively, only using the handbrake a few times; shooting around the inevitable parked UPS van, jaywalkers, stroller jockeys and the broad in the not-so-mini van who "floated" the stopsign. I stopped for the red lights, but most of the time didn't put a foot down; the light turns, and I'm off, on a mornign time trial through the streets of Summit, keeping a block a head of the motorized traffic behind me, slowing with my feet -- and the occaisional tap of the handbrakes.

I stopped for a cup of coffee, my legs a little heavy from powering up the hill I hadn't ridden on anything but my geared bike in a while, as my fix had been used mostly of commuting in town except for the occaisional longer ride. Saw a few people look skeptically at my "roadkill cycling" t-shirt and my wierd @ss bike. As I finished my coffee it started to rain. People took out umbrella sand ducked under cover. I laughed and mounted up my bike, ready to go dance with traffic again. The wind was blowing the other way; I could probably outrun the storm.

-- Elvis

Back in the fixedgear groove
Mood:  caffeinated
9-28-05: Riding my Fuji fixed gear lately. 40x16 gearing and cantilever brakes in the front hooked to a Shimano 105 road lever. The other lever's clamp was stripped or broke so I took it and the rear brake off.

Unfortunately, before this happened -- back when it was still 2 brakes -- this bike had it's first crash. Going thru a 4-way intersection the front wheel buckled and folded like a fortune cookie. No harm to the bike -- apparently -- but the left side of the handlebar and my right elbow both appear slightly out of bent. Okay, okay -- it's 1 or 2 *centimenters* but that's not the point -- I know it's *there* (on the bike!). So the bike gets new handlebars, ITM 330's all black. Goes well witht he black stem I put on it. Other than that I left the bike as is... even reused the black vinyl griptape...

Verdict: Handles much better in traffic, not sure if it's the bars or the new hand position I adopted with only one brake, now that I don't have two hoods to use. And tho' only having one brake lever feels lopsided at first due to the missing hood, is actually preferable to me... it looks like a fixed gear. It feels like a fixed gear.
[below: The FujiFix in NYC for the 5boro. It still looks similar except for it now has only a front brake, a newer handlebar/stem, and a replaced front wheel. -- Elvis

More bikes on the road
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
9-19-05: "I am so psyched to try that bike," said one of my co-workers yesterday. After building up a single speed beach cruiser for the boss to tool around the neighborhood in, he had asked me to build him a road bike.

"With drop bars?" I asked, skeptically.
"Yeah," he said. "I want those."

So my trusted Univega roadie, with brazed on downtube shifters, is now fitted with a set of older sturdy wheels, 25c tires, basic pedals [the clipless were removed and ready to go. There is air in the tires and it will be going to a new home tonight.

Similarly, my friend's mother wants to get on a bike, and we had planned for me to go with her to a shp -- pick out a ride. She bought a bike in the interim, but he still wants me to come over and help her set it up, adjust the ride position, etc.

Across town, an acquaintence of mine who sold bikes out of his back yard, got fined $500 for leaving one lonely bike, with a "bikes for sale" sign, out front.

I don't go out of my way to convert people to the bicycle, but by george, they see how much fun I have riding and they want one. And then along comes the government and fines a guy for trying to sell people bikes. Stupid legalistic f&*ks.

Personally, I feel the world would be a better place if more people rode. Even just once a week around the block.

But the government has different ideas. In supposedly bike-friendly Chicago, there is that crackdown going on. Cars and trucks [SUV's] routinely risk death on the roads, discouraging many from riding. For every step forward we take as a society, we leap a yard back.

So am I pissing into the wind? Waiting at the bus stop while my ship comes in? Raging against a machine which won't die? Hard to say. Every ride is fun, a reminder that we are alive and breathing, thinking, feeling individuals, not government-run automotons to be easily catagorized, defined and compartamentalized.

Will more people riding really make a difference? Hard to say that, too. One of the bike magazines gave away 50 free bikes and the recipiants began riding in earnest, encouraged others to ride, and claimed both health and emotional benefit. But was that an anomoly? It's hard even to say that those who want to ride will stick with it, let alone what difference it'd make outside the world of cyclists.

But for now, I've built a bike for one more person. Maybe that's enough.

-- Elvis

The Bicycle Militia?
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
Recall all those stories in the 1990's about radical Americans moving out west and starting armed groups, which came to be dubbed "militia's"?

The thought occured to me today as the price of gas began to go down, and I had my car fixed, but still rode a bike today. And then it hit me. All of us who ride -- for whatever reason -- are like a militia, throwing some collossal wrench into the engine of organization, social planning, and restriction.

By not doing the expected, or traditional, or "normal" thing -- drive -- we unnerve people. We puzzle them. And we occaisionally piss them off. But the end resultis that, as a whole, American cyclists are a strongwilled group. There are probably more cyclists who honestyl ride regularly, then there are religious people who can truthfuly say they regularly attend sermons. And the truth is that it's fun.

But what we have long done for fun -- often independently of one another -- is now coming together. $3.59 a gallon gas, even if it recovers to like $3 a gallon, will forever change America. Recallt he gas hikes of the 1970's? The price never went down after that.

But becausde we ride more than drive, regular cyclists are not being hit -- financially or through frustration -- by this ten-pound sledge hammer every time they go somewhere.

Because we do what's considered dangerous, unusual, and maybe a little odd [f-ing nuts I've been told] out coworkers, noncycling friends, and family regard us as wierd. Those who overestimate the effort needed to ride think that something as simple as a 40 mile ride is a herculean effort. Hey, if they want to overglorify what we are and do with resperception, the errors to the advantage, eh?

But the result is we do not fit in, we are misfits, like the militia who removes themselves from society to go train in the woods. The difference is that unlike the militia we are waging our war every day, a war against waste, frustration, absurdly high gas prices and mind-killing "routine". To us a spin to the store can a be fun adventure; to the guy int he Hummer it simply costs ten bucks.

As we wage our war, maybe the social fabric will shift, the cylcists will be welcomed, and everyone would take up biking -- or at least stop treating those who bike as freaks. But I doubt it -- and somehow, if that were to happen, it would seem almost like the enemy of mediocrity won. Who wants to be mainstream an "normal" anyway?

I'd rather be a part of the "bicycle militia" of America -- doing my own thing, and at the same time holding back to curtain of cosmic insignifigance with each turn of the cransk, and frustrating the government catagorizers and rule makers with each click of my SPD cleats on pavement.

Why? Not sure. But tearing a hole through that curtain is a hell of a lot more enjoyable than letting it fall.
-- Elvis