Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Leaving

Cars full, long drive, Durango on Friday. Fuck yeah!!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Olympic Sized Gut Buster

The Hammer gel was put down last Saturday in a time of 7 min and 43 sec and the other Gu packs were last year. The two Gu packs together equal 1000 cal. and were put down in 1 min and 41 sec.
The Hammer gel went down OK but kicked my ass pretty good in the end and made for a bad ride home and even worse night... yeah you get the point.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Grease Monkey

My new front derailleur setup is done. I fabed up a small piece to test at Mohican and it did not break. The new setup is a Sram Force 35mm band clamp (forgotten, then found in my parts bin) not a braze on, this eliminates an extra bolt, some weight and makes for a stiffer derailleur. Even tough the band clamp models are lighter than braze on models with adapters my new setup is heavier at 130g but shifts much better. My old setup was a 7700 braze on Duraace that I modified to work as a top pull. It was a light setup at 96g but had a poor leverage ratio and made for a difficult shift.

Now that I know the Sram setup will work I will invest in a better derailleur (Red) and a better grade of aluminum for the arm. This will bring the weight down to a more pleasing 75g.

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Core Commuter

I thought I might post a few pics of my commuter bike. I have been commuting to and from work at Orrville Cycling for the last few years on this bike and I did not want to be outdone by fellow Fisher rider Travis and his city bike so here it is.

The bike has a long history. It started out as my moms 14spd and then my dads main road bike. The bike fell into my hands four years ago. I rode it as a club ride bike and a school commuter. Two years ago I removed all the gears and ran it as a single speed with a 52t font ring and a 17t cog. I rode it to school and on club rides for a summer and finally decided to put it on the fixed gear diet. I used a set of Bontrager Superstock wheels form my old X-Cal and ran two cogs. The inner most cog a 34t and the drive cog a 16t. I tied the 34t to the wheel with brake cable through the spokes and rode it like that for a few months. At the end of the summer I built up a set of tank fixed/free wheels to make the setup legit. That was the last major upgrade I made to the bike until lately.

The frame is an old Schwinn Voyager form who knows when and the fork is a cheapo out of the the back store room (crashed the original).

The bar is a cheap Aluminum 38cm in a classic bend. The computer is a broken digital watch that I have taped to the stem with packing tape. The light is a Cateye Single shot that I acquired through the shop. I have been testing it for the last few weeks and so far I have been very impressed. More to come on that later.
Velocity 32h Deep V rims laced to Surly hubs with DT Swiss black Champion spokes and Black Alloy nipples.
The drive train is made up of a mix of parts. Sugino 170mm Supermaxy cranks and 44t ring with Surly 3/32 16t cog being turned by a Sram 870 chain. I chose the 870 over the 850 because my chain is the most stressed part on my bike and skimping on the chain seemed foolish.

When commuting long distance
I normally use Crank Brothers Quattros but for town and stunt riding toe clips are the pedal of choice. They allow for a varied range of locking force from loose to super tight. They will never let your foot out when set super tight. This makes them great for power slides and riding downhill at high speeds, think 150rpm.
The milk crate is great for getting the weight off my back and looks sweet... kinda. One day a customer asked if I was Amish, I love it. The crate is fixed to the bike with a OLD Middleburn rack with zipties for ease of removal. The rear light is a Cateye LD-100 which is the best small blinky light I have come across. It bungees to the frame rack ...milk crate, whatever and never bounces off like other lights.

Friday, August 8, 2008

...

Long time no post. I Guess I've been busy working riding and prepping for school. This has been my first chance to sit down and get some blogging time in so I'll make the most of it. Consider your self warned.

One of our customers Co-Motion Speedster arrived yesterday and will be picked either tomorrow or Monday. Just hours after it arrived I unpacked the boxes to check to see that the parts matched the order spec. Every thing seemed to match properly. I removed the headset and bottom brackets in preparation for the application of a rust inhibitor. The bike was a floor model at Co-Motion and had to be broke down and shipped, where normally the frame arrives in one box with all the parts in another.

20 hours after letting the rust inhibitor tack up I started the real frame prep. Every thing needed faced and BB threads needed chased. The King headset was reinstalled and the bottom brackets and eccentrics were installed and torqued.
The Rolf Prima wheels are very nice and are bad on the scales with a 1880.7g weight. That's probably lighter than your average single bike wheelset. Despite their high quality they still needed a good bit of truing before they got my seal of approval. With wheel on the bike, the hanger could be aligned for the best possible shifting.
Now let the fun begin.

But first I'll let you know that I am just the messenger and was not responsible for the decisions that were made. I did not want to swap handle bars or cranks due to the amount of time involved and foreseeing the compatibility problems with interchanging front cranks of different years (chain line issues).

-The customer wanted a 42cm captain bar 44cm stoker bar and a 175/172.5mm crank set.
-The bike was sent with a 44cm bar front and rear
-The bike was sent with a 175/172.5mm crank set......
-Though we were told that a 172.5/172.5mm crank set was on the bike.

We have a Speedster on the floor with every thing different except the cranks. With that in mind, the boss wanted the front crank set from the Co-Motion speedster on the floor, which was a 175/170mm crank set (older model) and the bar which is a 42cm swapped over to the new bike.

By swapping the front cranks and bars we would have a setup that would satisfy the customers wants, but this would take allot of time and new bar wrap for both bikes.

To further complicate the situation we have a customer who wants the Speedster on the floor but with 172.5/170mm cranks and 42cm bars. If we perform the crank swap then both customers will get what they want. But if we perform the bar swap the second customer will have a 44cm bar... so we will need to order a new bar anyways. So why not keep the 42cm bar on the floor speedster and just order a bar for the bike that is being assembled.. because someone is a little resistant to think.. yeah at this point I'm loosing my cool. I like to do things efficiently and properly with no thought to price.


Despite my advice not to swaps part, I am told to do so. So I do it. Halfway through the crank swap I find that the cranks on the new bike wont be compatible with the ones on the floor bike. Ha, I called that one! I never took note of the arm lengths assuming that the boss measured up. After determining that the crank swap would not work I found that the arms were the correct lengths on the new bike. What this means is the new bike is set up properly other than the bars not matching.

Half the day was waisted removing cranks and bars that really did not need removed and after cleaning up the mess that I had made in the process I rode home.



New tool box!!!

The model is a CH Ellis 8803. This is the portable case of my dreams. It features full piano hinges, thick molded plastic, locking latches, has a life time warranty, molded feet and yeah..its black. It has a inside measurement of 17.75" L x 14" W x 10" D.


But its the stuff on the inside which counts. The CH Ellis 3710 pallets hold the tools in place with folding/locking side panels, holds 86 tools and also has a life time warranty.

Plenty of room for more tools
Still room for more!


 

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