countrybicycle

Bike Friday One Way Tikit

2008-12-11T15:02:00.000-08:00

Check it...Got a new Tikit. It is a fixed gear model called the One Way Tikit. This is a model Bike Friday produces as a built to order option. It comes with a fix/fix rear hub. I made some component swaps and additions to personalize it a bit.
Thomson post and stem
Ti railed Specialized saddle
Carbon Easton bar
Paul Love Levers
Avid SD-7 brakes
Dura Ace 7400 series 170mm cranks with a matching loose ball DA 113mm bottom bracket
Niner YAWYD top cap with a "Seal of the Peculiar" bottle cap
Wisecracker bottle opener on the post.
Planet Bike blinkie on a custom mount to the right side seatstay brazeon - left side would be better for traffic - but it nests harmlessly in the fold on the right side...
Clamp-on ODI grips
Wireless Cateye computer
MKS Tour-Lite Pedals
Arundel stainless bottle cage
Light in Motion Vega light

Everything else is stock. I had to work on the rear hub. It came from BF with the axle width at 120mm. The rear end was set at 130mm. It was bolted on and the axle nuts compressed the rear end down to 120mm. I did not like it that the assembly was under such tension so I added spacers from another hub (Surly) to respace the axle to 130mm. The stock axle is hollow, so I cut it and installed a quick release. Works like a charm and will make flipping the hub relatively easy. I will still have to adjust the dropouts to take up chain slack. I am running a 53-14 now. It is a great all around gear combo for where I live. I may, however, do what Walter did and install a 13 on one side and a 15 on the other.

Even though these dropouts are super cool, I wish this bike had fork ends for easy flip flops. I asked for fork ends when I ordered it but they said it was not available like that. Oh well. Maybe they will offer it in the future and I can simply remove the rear end and replace it with another....Walter??

Pictures

Less tech and more ride in the next post...

Bikes, Fire, Dogs, Beer, Smores, Midnight

2007-04-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

Last night John, Jim and I rode the JCC as we do most Wednesday nights. This time, however, John was man enough to stash a 5 gallon bucket in the woods near the top of the hill where we usually break. He did this a few hours before the ride. Incidentaly, he locked his young kids in the car as he ran off into the woods with said bucket. Must have been a real scene for anyone who may have happened to be looking out their window as he disappeared into the woods. Don't get me wrong...he's a good Dad....just a little kookoo for cocoa puffs, if you catch my drift....

Normally, each of us carries a can of beer or two for a trailside, nightride break. This time, John's bucket was filled with ice, beer, hot dog wieners, buns, graha m crackers, marshmallows, chocolate, mustard and chipotle hot sauce! After the customary hang-out sesh on John's front porch, we got on the bikes and headed for the hills. Yes, one can ride to the trails from John's neighborhood. How many MTBers are that fortunate?

We finally arrived at the top where the bucket was stashed, Jim gathered dead-fall and made a rippin fire. We each found long, skinny sticks to skewer the dog into the fire. There is no better hot dog than one cooked over a campfire! Not even a ball park dog can compare. It's that good. After a couple of dogs, we skewered the marshmallows and made smores! Mmmmm Mmmm! Tasty!

Oh yeah, the ride was awesome! Great spring weather, trail's in super shape, couldn't ask for better company. Good times. Thanks Jim and John!

Bike Art for the Masses

2007-04-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

My friend sent me this mail this morning:

Is this a way to boost cred or watch it drop?

I'm talking about this little deluxe emoticon group graphic:

~~~ __o
~~~ _ <_
~~~ (_)/(_)

To which I cleverly responded:

My dearest Matthew,

Your letter finds me in sincere gratitude of your next pearl of wisdom! Yet I must admit, I am not impressed with this assemblage of dashes parenthesis and etcetera which I presume to crudely represent a cyclist at speed. His frame, incomplete; his tires, flat; his head, detached! How does he create this trailing turbulence??

To answer your question, if you are looking for 'cred' from retards...I think your 'art' is a cred rocket booster!! Otherwise, prepare for a short steep trajectory back to earth, my friend, where you will surely be consumed with great fiery...fire.

Nitto Dream Bars

2007-04-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

This narrative is of a dream I had last night about a good friend of mine...

I had a dream about you last night

Marie and I traveled to visit you, Kristin and Owen. You and your folks were living in some hippie part of town where the predominate architectural feature on most of the houses in the neighborhood were the carcasses of old cars hung, stacked or balanced on the exterior in what seemed a non-functional, purely whimsical arrangements. You were working on some steam generated fountain idea to which you had assembled a vertical tower of recycled clear plastic bottles and vases. Through some trick of thermodynamics, you had a heat source at the base of the tower that boiled a measure of water without melting the plastic! When hot enough, the water pressure increased such that the water rose in the tower and upon reaching the top, exited through the fountain head where it cascaded back into the basin and was recycled. I got too close and the mal-adjusted fountain head soaked me with scalding hot water! Whoops! But all was well, because the same heat-defying properties that saved the plastic tower from death by fire, also saved me form third degree burns from the scalding, or what should have been, hot water! We laughed about it in a good natured way.

What does that mean?
I dunno....the radio was not on at the time and the only drugs I had were Benedril and an inhaler. Wild.

I built the front wheel for my Rambouillet this weekend. The fork is going to be shipped from Rivendell soon. With the front and back wheels rebuilt, we have almost recovered from the accident. While I wait for the fork, I may take the cork bar wrap off, replace the Nitto 90mm Tech. Dlx. with a 80mm I have and rewrap the bars with two layers of brown Cateye cotton tape. I recently wrapped the bars on my Paramount with the Cateye tape and I really liked it better than the stuff you get from Riv. It is a little more flexible which makes it lay down smoother when going around curves and such. I am going to wrap two layers for a thicker grip. I'll bind the ends with hemp string and apply at least ten layers of clear shellac for a durable, waterproof, grippy textured finish. Maybe I'll film the whole process as a DIY resource.

Bike Friday - The Pocket Randonneur

2007-03-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

Since the Rambouillet is waiting for a new fork, the only roadish bike left in my garage is a Bike Friday Pocket Lama. The Pocket Lama is Bike Friday's tourish bike that is usually seen with flat bars. I don't like flat bars for the road, so I had a new stem built to replicate the 'cockpit' dimesions of my Rambouillet. I even sent BF a Nitto Noodle bar to have it cut and sleeved for packing. Diacomp 287 aerolevers are compatible with the longer cable pull required for the v-type brakes. The addition of bar-con shifters mounted on Kelly Take-Off's, planet bike fenders and a Nitto M-12 front rack complete the conversion of this bike to a Pocket Randonneur...or at least, that's what I call it...

Please pass me a fork...

2007-03-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is semi related to the previous post about my bike wreck. When I got my heap of bike home that day, upon closer inspection with a set of Park Fork Alignment tools I borrowed from my friend John, I determined without a doubt that my fork was bent. The alignment tools, which attach to the dropouts and allow the user to observed all axis of alignment relative to the fork tips. As such, however, it cannot define the exact location of a misalignment. Well, at least in this case, it could not since the misalignment is represented as the left dropout a few millimeters behind the right...or maybe it's visa-versa. Judging by the buckle at the top of the left blade near the crown and the corresponding crack in the clear coat on the front side of the blade opposite the buckle, it's pretty obvious which blade is bent and where the bend is located.
So the fork did it's job. It took the impact and failed...but it did save the frame. A 'stronger' fork may have transferred the impact to the frame where the headtube would deflect and the result would be a buckle on the underside of both the top tube and the down tube. That would have been $1250 to replace the frame rather than $200 to replace the fork!
There are two options here. The fork is cro-moly steel and can certainly be straighted and ridden but knowing that a bend with a buckle is serious and given that the fork is a major structural member of a frameset, I elected to call Rivendell and order a new fork.
Who answered the phone but Grant Peterson!
"Rivendell Bicycles, this is Grant."
"Grant Peterson??"
"Yes..."
"Wow....."
"(chuckles)"
So am I a dork or is it pretty cool that the owner of a world renound company and a legend in his own time answers the phone to take an order? I think it's pretty cool even though it is probably not all that uncommon given any cottage industry.
But I did have Grant Pertersons and I gave him some ideas for a new line of 650B wheeled freeride bikes....
No, I ordered a new fork which may be two weeks out.
In the mean time, I relaced my back wheel. I wanted to reuse the spokes so, without doing any research for options, I am sort of locked into using Mavic Open Pros again. Aside from being orageously expensive, these are excellent rims. They are pretty light at somewhere near 400 grams and are double eyeleted which I really like. I also like the welded seam and machined sidewalls. Finally, I got silver rims to rpelace the dark anodized Open Pros becasue I think the silver rims look better on a classic style bike like the Rambouillet.
Since I am reusing spokes and hubs, I am married to the lacing patterns I had on the existing wheels. That is, radially laced on the front wheel and 3-cross / radial on the back wheel. After lacing the and tensioning the back wheel, I now wish I sprung for new spokes and at least built the back wheel 3-cross on both sides.

T-Bones & Red Meat

2007-03-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. I hit a car this weekend while riding on the road. I was on my regular 25 mile road loop through the older urban neighborhoods of Birmingham. On one of the several downhills on the loop, I was rolling at about 35mph - tailgating a Tahoe. Suddenly, he slammed on his brakes and made a quick left without signaling. I grabbed two handfuls of brakes and went into a full-on sideways drift. For a glancing moment, I thought I might be able to haul the bike to a safe stop, but my field of vision quickly filled with gleaming American plastic as I plowed my bike and the right side of my body into his left rear quarter panel. In retrospect, it feels weird to replay this scene. Of course, from the moment I saw the brake lights to the instant ass met asphalt, is all in slo-mo. I had so many thoughts during the few seconds it took to decelerate. The most notable thought being the realization that yes - I am going to hit this car. I was feeling that went with the thought was not fear. I was not scared. I was pissed! I was so angry that this SOB had no regard for the traffic behind. If he absolutely needed to make a left, rather than slam on the brakes, putting everyone behind him in sudden reactionary mode, he could have passed the turn and continued down the street where he could have properly signaled and...you know the rest. Bottom line was that I was pissed that this inconsiderate asshole was alive and in front of me.
I slammed into the side of his truck with a solid thud - all 180 pounds of me. I was too preoccupied trying to gauge the amount of damage my bike suffered to look at his newish Tahoe. I hope I left a body-sized crater. I hope it costs $3000 to fix his truck. I hope insurance won't cover it since we did not call the cops for a report!
As soon as body/car/bike came to a full stop, I jumped up off the pavement and started yelling. I was hollering so loud that people started to come out of their houses. I called this guy every name in the book. I asked him - at the top of my lungs - if he knew how to use a fucking turn signal? He had the balls to retort that, yes, he did know how to use a turn signal. I shot back, frothing at this point, that he did not use it this time.
I think the guy was genuinely concerned. He listened without further comment to my rant until I calmed down. He hovered in my periphery as I surveyed the damage to my bike. Unless mumbling 'fuck' as I inspected the folded rims, bent fork and torqued bar converstion, there was no other discourse between us. I sent him on his way. I told him I appreciated his concern. He was probably so releaved that we both walked away with no greater consequence that whatever money would be spent on mechanical repairs.
Alone now, sitting on the curb, trying to beat my rear wheel true caveman style, I conceded to the fact that I would need to relace new rims. I called my buddy Jim who lives nearby and requested a ride home.
REPAIR UPDATE: Bike still in repair stand waiting for a new fork.

Bankhead National Forest, NW Alabama

2007-02-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

So I went to Bankhead. When I told my folks what I was doing, they just sort of looked at me. She does not care as much as she lets on. There is just so much work to do at the house. On the balance scale, the more work I do at the house, the less I ride. While the house looks better and better, I feel worse! I have not had a good stiff after-ride BM in I don't know how long! I hate these shitty shits!
The plan for bankhead included me and my buddy Jim going up friday afternoon and camping down the road from the trailhead. Jim's schedule, however is a little looser than mine and he was able to get out of town in the early afternoon. I got driving directions from him. They were the directions our friend Johnny provided. He is a hell of a researcher. If it's on the net...he's seen it. He's that good.
I had expected to hear from Jim when he arrived in the park. The plan was to call and confirm that the directions were correct and to pass on any other relavent information. That call never came. I was sure that coverage was nil in the forest, so I did not worry about it, although, some communication would have been nice snce I was running much later than expected.
I worked a full day and left the office around 6:00. I went to my Grandparents, met the rest of my family there and had dinner. I sat around for a little while visiting until I felt a comfortable segue to exit.
I finally left at about 8pm. I could not get hold of Jim to alert him of my tardiness. Not so much because he owns me and I must check in, but out of common courtesy.
The drive up was nice. It's about 95 miles. Half on the highway; 65N. The rest on lesser roads. Overall trip time is about 1:15. Not bad for a park that offers so many opportunities for cyclists, canoers, backpackers, etc. One day, I'm going to get my shit together and combine my two loves; cycling and camping. Bankhead is a good place for this because the forest is huge and one can camp anywhere and there seem to be hundreds of miles of forest roads - both on and off track.
Johnny's directions took me directly to the campground. I think it's called Brushy Lake Campground. Despite the darkness, I found the spot Jim selected easily since his truck was parked near the street. As I pulled in, the forst thing I noticed was that he had a small fire going and was happy to finally company.
Number 5 is a great spot. There is an upper section with a picnic table, fire pit and tent flat, but if you walk a few feet down away from the road, there is a lower section that is grassy and flat and neat the lake! This is where Jim had his tent set. I brought a tarp and a groundcloth.
Normally, I sleep in a tent when I camp or backpack. In the summer, I really enjoy the sleep I get in a hammock. In fact, if I could use the hammock year-round, I would because it really is that comfortable. I have never slept better. In cooler temperatures, however, it is really difficult to stay warm in a hammock. Even in a 15deg down bag, once the insulation is compressed beneath you and the air flow under the hammock has circulated any semblance of warmth away, there is nothin to do but shiver. I have a Hennessy Hammock. I noticed that they have designed an accessory that traps air below the hammock and keeps the hammock warm when needed. I have not tried this myself, but am anxious because I really like backpacking with a hammock. In warmer temps, it allows you to leave the pad, pillow and sleeping bag at home. That translates to drastically reduced pack weights!
The tarp thing is a whole story in itself. I am on this kick after running into Ray Jardine's web page extolling the virtues of tarp camping and his DIY tarp and quilt sewing projects. I had seen his page before but wrote it off. I mean, tents are cool! Like a turtle, you've got a little house on your back! But the last time I went backpacking, despite the dry weather and a tent that is very well ventilated, the walls sweated and I got wet anytime I brushed against the inside tent fabric! Now that's aggravating! It's like a dogs cold nose on your hand when you least expect it. Ok...dog lovers...I guess that's endearing and makes you cream but I don't really like dog nose juice. I also don't like wet tents.
So, for this trip, I slept under a tarp for the first time and it was really great. The night was clear and cold. I slept really warm and secure in a down bag. When I awoke, everything was still dry and I felt great!
Jim cooked up a big car-camp breakfast. Scrambled eggs, sausage and bagels. We had a few hours to kill because the rest of the group were just leaving Birmingham and still had just over an hours drive. We ate, drank coffee, went for a short hike at the lakeside, took dumps, and packed up the campsite.
Suddenly, it got cold as the sky darkened and ten lightning bolts struck nearby. We double timed our packing efforts. I jumped in my truck because it seemed unsafe to be surrounded by tall trees and the lightning seemed really close! Then, it started to hail! Little dime size pieces of ice fell solidly for 5 minutes. Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The cloud mass passed and the sun brought the temperature back to a more comfortable level!
We rolled out of the campsite and drove to the trailhead which is a few miles down the road. When we arrived, John was already there and the rest were not far behind.
Stay tuned for the ride report...

Procrastination

2007-02-22T20:03:00.000-08:00

Look...I'm 37 years old. I ride my bike as often as I can. To actually mix riding with a road trip and a little camping is halfway to nirvana for me. With recently acquired responsibility of a house that needs work, a wife that needs love, and a baby on the way, it takes a little time for me to find the perfect moment, the most appropriate segue to drop the bomb. I hate this!! I wanna be the guy that says, "Look!, I'm going camping and riding and I'll be back in a few days. Take care of yourself. I love you. See ya!!"

No. Not me. I wait and wait. To add insult to injury, by writing this, I have effectively told everyone but her of my weekend intension!

The ride is going to be killer. It will be a great way to assuage my guilt for leaving my very pregnant wife. I mean, that's an asshole, right? But really...40 mile singletrack loop at Bankhead National Forest in North Alabama. Camp the night before. Big fire, roasted weinies, good friends.

For me, this ride will be a prelude of sorts to a race I am competing in April first. The Ouachita Challenge is a 60 mile race in the Ouachita Wildeness in Arkansas. I have been busy with said wife and house so much that my training regime has been sparse to say the least.

I think I'll email this to my wife...