Another hot shot from DustinJ. His Flickr stream is a necessary link.
From the Bike Away From Work Fashion Show in SF. This here is the kind of sight that would cause me to crash. Alone. No obstacles. Face plant.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edmdusty/3537737624/
Full shot:
The Derailleurs are in town, I believe for the CM tonight, which I will again miss. However, I was pleased to note that the current line-up is quite aesthetically pleasing, in other words, fly.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edmdusty/3618210701/ from DustinJ
We’ve noted her nice leg used in a wheelset ad previously, but now that IminusD out of San Jose has their site up, we can also admire how she trues a wheel and how she examines available stock for Quality Control purposes.
Nice work!
TRDL R3 Forum member and R3 Army Lt. Akua sent us another fun care package, this time chuck full of non-consumable awesome. Highlight was this notepad. GO GO BICYCLE. And all the WTF below that, had me rolling. You know how much I love a grammawrong.
The package also included a cool hobbyist mag (I used to read these in JH when doing a lot of anime models) and HOT BOT ACTION!
Lung and I got to take one of our treasured bromantic fixie-crawls this past Saturday AM, an activity that was, until recently with the birth of my botlet, a regular ritual. But these days, a free morning is hard to come by, and horse-trading occurred in my loft to yield a negotiated 3.5 hour window of awesomeness time. And so we took it, meeting at Flora Grubb’s for coffee, cat fancy and some foliage admiring. Then, we were off into the foggy, windy San Francisco summer morning, to ride and bullshit around, and also, to visit bike shops. Lung has a few projects cooking, and my goals were two-fold: check out a few parts for the Ye Blacke Death build, and look at bar options for Fix-e. I very nearly decided to sell of Fix-e last month, as the frame is a bit small, and the cranks are lower quality than I want to use now… I thought, thin the herd a bit… but then, when I actually pulled it down, I couldn’t let go. It was my first project, and it stays. But I knew my annoyance with the bars was getting untenable. It’s had long bullhorns for about a year, leather wrapped, and fairly recently the bar end brake lever was joined by a finger lever up top. But the bar end lever kept popping out, the tape was a bit weather beaten, and frankly, it was just time for a change.
I was originally looking at three types of potential bars for Fix-e, and two shapes for YBD. Though I saw these at American when I visited, I was more taken by the steep drops they had in stock by NITTO. It’s funny, some stuff you can totally piece together by imagining it, checking dims, and ordering online or sourcing through ebay or whatever. But some things you need in hand. I knew I wanted to look at track drops, but I wasn’t sure what they would feel like. I mean, I’ve ridden on conventional and aero drops for my road bikes forever, but I never really examined the popular ‘pursuit’ drops popular with the alleycat types these days, given that I don’t race around town in the drops and such. But one thing I continue to enjoy is a narrow bar width, for negotiating traffic and a, fr lack of a beter description, different ride experience than my road bikes.
I quite liked some of the drops I saw, especially NITTO’s B-123 which comes as tight as a murderous 34cm width. And I realllly liked how that felt, even though there’s definitely compromise at the top, where I often rest my hands, even more so when utilizing an uncool brake lever. But I just wasn’t convinced among the three bar styles, and left empty-handed, to ponder. Additionally, Fix-e has always been my experiment bike. From builds in the first place to specific components, I try stuff out there, then commit to them on other projects. Wrongbike benefitted from several choices made through Fix-e experimentation. So, I was a little alarmed at the idea of using a $75-100 NITTO bar on an experiment. As I dwelled, I realized that the OTHER thing I wasn’t feelin on these drops was that they are proto-fixie style. You see that geometry EVERYWHERE online. And that’s fine, they rock, and if you’re an alleycat type, power to you. But I realized I wanted something different. I ruled out the third bar (a bar Lung turned me onto, called the Sparrow) and so I was set. But gosh, wish I could actually have them in hand in order to execute!
Fortunately, I got my chance, as I got Mr. Mhom duty for the later afternoon for about an hour, while Wifebot was at the salon. I was just driving around looking for a good place to park so I could get the botlet into the chest carrier and take a stroll, when I thought to myself, self? Why not the Mission… where there just happens to be another track shop… and bless her, the botlet stayed mellow while I was in there, long enough to get both the bars I wanted AND the necessary grips, and out before mcFussin got going.
It took some research to figure out how to apply the grips, however. I read about several approaches. I can tell you, direct application does NOT work. But I decided to experiment with two suggestions I read about in the track bike forums, and they worked perfectly. You soak the rubber grips in hot water, shake them out, then scoot them onto the bars that have been doused with Windex. The Windex and water evaporate fast, and the grips hold. PERFECT.
I’ll tell you what, I think the new drops look AWESOME. They ride well too, but I do think I’m still in for a taller stem. That aggressive a riding position works for awhile, but you need to be able to sit up and admire the EHPs too, you know? But super stoked. Different cranks and tyres and I think Fix-e’s got a new lease on life!
Ye Blacke Death is a sloowwwww project. I have a botlet now, and she gets 99.99% of my free time. I’m working on this bike in bits and pieces as I can. Unlike wrongBike(tm), where I assembled ALL the parts first, and then put the bike together, this time, I’m sort of using the Lung school, and piecing it together as i go. Partly, this is just for fun, and partly because I want to test my assumptions and plans and schemes as I go, so I can course correct when needed. Like all of my projects, this one will have details that will change before it’s done (and already has) but that’s the fun of bike builds… they’re kind of organic in a design sense.
I pulled the old wheels off the frame and test fitted the new ones, this time around. This was for two purposes: I wanted to absolutely verify that I hadn’t misremembered the spacing on the frame (I bought the wheels on my iPhone while at my in-laws, without the frame at hand to verify) and it did. Additionally, I wanted to see how the silver finish of the rims was going to look. I had originally planned a very dark build: gunmetal parts where possible. This may still happen, if I find a suitable means of shooting a ‘smoke’ finish that won’t peel off without primer (why can’t Tamiya build stuff for BIG kits?) But my research into building wheels in a gunmetal look from scratch proved that approach to be too expensive and ultimately imperfect. I could get the rims dark, and maybe the spokes, but not the nipples or hub. I also looked at anodizing, as I posted about separately, but again, the brass nipples get you there. So I decided to focus on technology more than aesthetics, and choose the wheels based on how they work, not how they look (as related to my original concept)… but until I mounted them, I wasn’t sure if the silver was going to distract.
Nope, it’ll work juuuuuuust fine.
What i DID learn from this quick test was crucial to the future of the bike, however: the rims are light, but I want to simplify the look of the wheels. That mean no gumwall or all-gum tyres as I originally planned. Now I’m going all black. And in the arena of non-racing-slick tubular tyres, that’s harder to come by. More next time…
sweet. THIS site is a comprehensive collection of bikes and bike stuff for sale all over the nation, searchable by state or price or brand … even COLOR.
for instance, the banner pic — a raleigh step-through with matching painted metal fenders, a rack, stem shifters, springer seat, gumwalls, and a sweet swept-back bar — $100 in sacramento, ca. i found that in like .03s of searching.
I thought long and hard about the wheels for the YBD project. Mostly, this involved hub choices. I was hot for the concept of a Sturmey Archer 3-speed internally-geared hub, but their FIXED model is still a displayed prototype and has been in development for 3 years, still unreleased. I knew I wanted the bike to be fixed. But I wanted it to be different. I looked at old 3 speed coaster hubs, and a few other things, but then it hit me. Using the tried and true Team Lope Cycling Clubbe motto [ New Tmey Bikery in an Old Timey Way ]… I realized I could capture some of the old timey flavor of this build in the wheel selection, not just through hubbery, but through essential technology. And, frankly, I wanted to try something new. And by new, I mean old.
So, I am now in possession of a wheelset for YBD that excites me. Formula fixed/fixed, laced to Mavic Reflex… TUBULARS.
Not a big deal to traditionalists or Euro racers, but a big deal to me. So, we’ll see if I can avoid killing myself by gluing these tyres up in a wrongish way! I just like the concept of lacing up the tyres in an old-fashioned manner for this build…
I think if a girl tooled by me on the Embarcadero wearing tall athletic socks, running shorts, a full tank, and a low rider bicycle with a banana seat, I’d crash right into the side of an ELECTRIC HYBRID HUMMER H3.
