Stuff and upgrades...
Topic: tales from the garage
2/02/06 - The other day I redid the lug work on my "black bomber" -- the Schwinn Tempo road fix. Yellow spray paint applied with a brush where b4 there used to be gold-brown auto touch up paint. The lugs of this black bike are now outlined in yellow.

I also tweaked the brake - it now runs front brake only, hooked to a Shimano aero lever, with silver Fizik grip tape on the tops of the bars. And the newest addition -- a "carbon" seat. I got to, can't decide where to put the other one. They are this yet comfy, light yet wide enuff for my bum -- and still ride like decent road seats. $14.99 not bad...

All of this raises the question in one's mind of "Stuff and upgrades". At what point do you go from saying "I added 'stuff' to my bike", to "I upgraded my bike"? Nonriders look askance at spending $ for bike parts, or time on rebuilding, so riders are often compelled to explain that such-and-such is an "upgrade", thereby justifying cost, or time, to those who would not necessarily understand.

By definition, an "upgrade" is the replacement of one part with a "better" part -- but better is so subjective. Better how? Looks, feel, brand name, affordable price, weight?

Ultimately it sounds better to say "I upgraded". "Stuff" just sound lame... upgrade, official. Important. Yet, when you get right down to it, new parts -- whether "stuff" or "upgrades" -- or both -- both serve the same function; improving yer ride. And if a new seat, different brake lever, or some other gizmo allow you to more enjoy your bicycle, than that part is an "upgrade" by definition -- even if it doesn't look as nice, or cost as much.

- Elvis

Back in the fixedgear groove....
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RIDE REPORT
2/01/06 - The past few days saw improvement to my Schwinn Tempo road fix. Removed the rear brake and hooked up a modern Shimano aero lever to the front one. Taped the barrel adjuster of the front brake so it wouldn't bang the downtube and nick the paint. Had to discard the grip wrap because the Fizik I had on their ripped when unrapped, so I rewrapped it using another sort of Fizik grip tape that was re-used. There wasn't enough fer the whole bars so I did the top parts because that's where I mostly ride and also it'll prevent the bars fron dinging the frame. Routed the aero brake cable under the tape and its all good.

Also installed 165mm cranks on the thing; they help me spin and do a number on cornering clearance. Who'd a thunk 5mmm would make a diff?!

Only other change was to move the h20 bottle cage from the downtube mount to the seattube one. Waiting on pics...

- Elvis

Test ride!!!!
Topic: RIDE REPORT
1-27-06 - Took the fixed Specialized offroading yesterday mornin' and it was a beautiful day for it -- just a tad cold.


Couldn't be happier with this thing.

Fixed -- again!
1-24-06: Took the grips and rims off my 4500 fixed and built up my old Specialized mtb frame as a fixed gear 26" mtb. 36x16 gearing and it's good!

- Elvis

Finishing touches -- Fixed gear mtb...
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: tales from the garage
1/21/06 - My Trek 4500 fixed gear mtb worked fine today, but ponderng chain tension, I figured a halflink would ease it -- the chain was really too tight for both safety, and longterm wear concerns. So I installed a bmx chain with a half link. Turns out the wider bmx chain was slightly longer -- you could see the difference but it was hard to measure -- and I didn't need the halflink afterall. The bmx chain was enough. This is an old somewhat beat-up chain, so I hope it lasts until I can get to the LBS to get a new one -- and I hope the new one will be the same dimensions. There are so many variances among bmx chains -- different widths, different coatings and finishes -- that I hope a new one will work when I need it.

But for now, the wheel spins easy and free -- fixed, with just the right tension.

- Elvis

Surly 1 spd hub!
Topic: RIDE REPORT
1/20/06 - Just installed the Surly ss rear wheel. It's double freewheel threaded on each side so I threw on a 16t cog. My chainwhip was a POS and broke so I used two wood liners to protect the teeth, and a bench vise. Will add an old bb lockring when I get around to it. The 34x16t gearing gives a VERY tight chainline, tension is bordering on too tight, but the bike rides fine and it will hopefully losen up just enuff. I thing if I used an odd numbered cog (15) in the back, or a odd numbered chainring (35, 41) up front, because the chainline was off, but not as tight, when running the odd numbered 34x11. In the meantime, there is always a halflink if I need it...


- Elvis

Still riding the 4500 ss....
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RIDE REPORT
1/18/06:



Still riding the 4500.... but mighty unsatisfied with the 34x11 gearing! Maybe I shoulda' left the whole rear gear cluster on and just run the chain over the third one like I had it before. It looks cleaner with the one cog but 11t is brutal!
...so I spent my lunch break taking apart wheels and looking for spacers so I can run the 13t rear cog ss instead of the 11t. Only found two spacers so I decided to try and cut my own, which came out horribly and probably would have caused me to crash and die if I used them. So it stays at 34x11t gearing until it gets set up "fixed"... after that it's all good!

Still, it bombs over stuff, and the fork, which is too heavy and basic for the woods, performs admirably agains curbstones! The teenyweeny rear cog looks sick -- err, slick -- but that slightly off chainline is still bothering me. I know it's there, dammit!

In the meantime, the like 3.09 to 1 gear ratio is mad fast on the street even with the knobby tires. I passed a car this morning in the rain and he just looked at me like I was daft. Just hard to get up hills. Real hard. And forget going up even moderate hills offroad on grass or dirt! For comparison, picture riding a trackbike with 53x17 gearing uphill or offroad. That's 3.11 to 1 which is like pure speed and knee pain and this is about as bad. But it kills on the flats. Maybe if I could rig up a 28t front chainring, like those "granny gears" udes on triples... but fer that I need new cranks.

I plan on running like a 17t cog with the fixed rear wheel so it'll be a bit easier to ride even if I keep the 34 up front; more spin, less ouch.

Anyhoo ....wind blew the damn thing over this morn'. Looks like no damage but durned if that's why I dislike aluminum! Good news: Adjusted the seating of the wheel and the drive side brake stopped rubbing. But rain is a b!tch -- got home soaked as a drowned cat and will get just as soaked riding tonite. Why can't I feel happy driving like a "normal" person?

- Elvis

RIDE REPORT -- Trek 4500 modified - AGAIN!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RIDE REPORT
1/17/06 - A few days ago I began riding my Trek mtb in the snow. Hey, the snow bike was a cool invention but not practical for more than a mile or so given the gearing and cranks.

After riding int he snow I realized I wanted a fixed mtb. Not a fixed offroad road frame with 35c 'cross tires like my Centurion which was spotlighted in www.63xc.com or my Specialized steel mtb which ran 700c rims, but a true mtb using mtb (26") rims and a modern frame design -- spoling toptube, high seat. Like my Trek 4500 mtb. Except that had virtical dropouts and gears...

Off came the gears, I set it up as a ghetto ss using the middle cog up front (34t) and the third cog in from the outermost in the rear. Perfect chain tension. Decent chainline. When I removed the shifters I had to swap out the brakes as the bike had those "rapidfire" shifters where the brake lever and shifter controls are one unit. But I only had one decent mtb brake lever -- everything else was road stuff -- in the parts bin. Not wanting to run mixmatched levers on what was my nicest mtb so far I simple left the front brake unconnected and taped the cable to the housing of the rear brake. Then after some pondering I removed the front brake entirely so I'm running just a rear, like a bmx'er.

My Girl was supposed to show up this morn fer coffee but was a no show until much later, so rather than sit on my bum, I took another wheel -- the one fitted with my first attempt at studded ice tires -- and after realizing I did indeed possess the right took, removed the cassette. The last 5 gears were a rivited unit with what looked like plastic and brass spacers... the first two gears (the two smallest) were loose. Looking in vain for spacers, then cutting my hand in an attempt to pry the rivit heads off the cassette to access what spacers might be in there, i cursed. Then I realized that I had a serviceable gear... the last and outermost gear, which rested on top of the freehub body and therefore needed not spacers!

Putting this last and smallest cog (I think it's 11t)on, I took the tire off the Trek's stock wheel and swapped it to the now one-cog wheel. Inflating to to make sure I hadn't busted it -- the bead was harder to seat than the older tires I had used -- I installed the wheel on the bike fearing the worst: no way to achieve cahin tension without wasting the halflink I had been saving until the bike's fixed wheel arrives, or the second worst: a f-ed up chainline. No dice, tension was solved by removing a link and the chainline was ok. A tad crooked but workable. Of course the much smaller cog makes it harder to ride offroad etc. but it should be fine for the street, I don't plan on hitting trails until I get the fixed wheel for it given the winter weather and the fact that they don't plow the woods! ;)

Currently that's how it sits -- got a halflink for chaintension with those virt drops which I will wait to use 'til the fixed wheel arrives -- waiting for the new dbls fixed 26" one the LBS got -- coming in a week so they say.

I am one happy camper!

Come summer I plan to hit the woods on this thing; otherwise it's going to be my sub-urban assualt bike for the streets. I figure two pairs of tires, one semislick, one treaded, will made it do-able. My only regret is that without an eccentric rear hub like the Eno or White industries, I'll have to run the same gear offroad and on. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Anyway, I used the same one gear on my ss stingray when I stripped it down and used it for the trails and the town years ago... How diff is this?

Pic coming soon...!

- Elvis

GHOST RIDERS?
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
1-11-05: A recent picture on the cover of the New York Sun highlighted the "ghost ride" to memorialize cyclists killed while riding. Another article in the Village Voice highlighted the issue. While the Voice is normally an atrocious liberal rag, I find it's coverage of the cycling issues to be much better than most of the mainstream media, on par with that of the Sun, which fairly told both sides of the "cops seizing parked bikes" issue during a recent crackdown.

However, this being another eleventh -- Januaery 11, to be exact -- I think of other memorials, like those for the victims of Sept. 11 terror. What was the purpose of those memorials? To honor those who died, true, but beyond that memorials -- even those for the dead of centuries past -- are a cal to action. The ancient Greek sagas of heroism in war call across the ages, making the reader's soul stir to bravery. More recent death's such as the Sept. 11 victims make hte purpose of memeorials clear -- they provide an emotional grounidng for the action needed to ensure that the deaths never occur again in a similar fashion. They provide a reason -- and justification -- saying, in effect, "this is why we do what we do now". And they spur us to do it.

Any memorial that does not stir the spectator into a participant in some way is a failure. Any memorial that just says, "here person X died", is a bland excuse in a noble tradition's clothing.

Memeorials, then, are only useful -- in emotional, philosophical, and practical terms, if they spur action. Therefore the ride -- a small ride of only a hundred and fifty or so -- is noteworthy for getting it's picture in the NY Sun and other papers. But if it results not in any action, by those who see the pictures, or witness the ride, and it's memorials, it was as if it had never been.

So what needs to be done?

While I don't often agree with the Voice -- as stated -- it's coverage of cycling issues is exemplary. Same goes for the Sun's article on seizure of bikes which I have commented on earlier. The news media as a whole could take a cue and get a clue, about the life and death issues involved.

I have been hit by cars several times, and have been injured from a large pothole that was surely exaserbated by the large volume of truck / SUV traffic here in NJ so I sympathize with the NYC riders. I have one leg a half inch shorter than the other, and a shoulder that will never be quite as good as new.

Drivers need to be held accountable for what they do. The media can help -- oftne a media call to action preceeds a political response. This is usually a bad thing -- rushing headlong into political choices soles to placate the papers -- but it can be used for good. If the people lead, as the saying goes....

Our society takes people who could never ever pass the bakcground check for a gun and sets them loose on the streets in 4-wheeled bullets ready to hurt others.

Drivers also need to be better educated and trained. As drivers, they are trained from the moment they get their license to look for other cars; often they look right past bikes or pedestrians and do not see them.

Drivers also find bike speed harder to estimate than that of cars. Drivers therefore need to be taught that bikes are there, and that they are not stationary fixtures of the landscape; bikesa can get up to like 60 mph, but realistically, a geared road biker will usually get up to 30 mph on an open road and a fixed gear such as I ride in the winter can easily get up to 20 mph sprinting in traffic. Cruising speed varies; some average 17mph on road bikes. If drivers were aware of this they might realize the follow of trying to get in front of that "slow moving" bicycle, especially on a crowded street where the car's average speed might work out to about the same!

"Just the other day" -- and this could be any day, 'round here -- I was almost hit by a car. I been hit several times. One of my coworkers got hit by a car that stopped short on a 40mph street right in front of him with no turn signal. Okay, technically he hit the car, but whose fault was it? No turn signal, dead in the water in the middle of a street? These drivers need to be careful. The cyclists are already careful, but we aren't mind readers!

If drivers ed (do they still teach that?) was updated with a section on bikes and new drivers started out right, while old ones are reminded -- and punished when they kill or maim someone -- it would be a start. If that doesn't work we can always start breaking the fingers of drivers who don't use turn signals...

- Elvis

A new (old) ride!!!!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RIDE REPORT
1-05-06: Starting the new year off right with a new bike!

My black Schwinn Tempo roadbike is now a fixed gear roadbike... I removed the shifters, big chainring, and a length of chain. I cleaned it and then outlined the lugs using brown car touch up paint -- it came out a metalic tan, just perfect! Currently it's running 42x18 with both brakes.

- Elvis