Original configuration, February 2003
Original configuration, February 2003
This is my bizarre bike. People seem to like it, though. I have to say, I like it lots myself. I also think it might have gone astray. It's currently equipped with
Horizontal dropouts. But they're a little short for some chainring/cog combinations, notably the one I'm running now. I'm considering notching out the dropouts just a tad.
It's long. Better for getting those panniers out of the way.
The U-brake. Doesn't matter since I'm not running a rear brake. However, I did catch my boot on the U-brake stud just as I was starting out once, ripping up the boot and causing me an embarrassing fall. I should remove the studs.
The original 130mm rear spacing was widened to 135mm.
It does not have a computer. I have no idea how many miles I've put on the bike, and somehow want to keep it that way. I don't mind the messy wiring for the taillight, but it serves a purpose. I'm not really concerned about speeding tickets. I should probably work out my cadence, but I just guess that, and if I feel I should be working harder, I'll go out and buy a bigger chainring.
I think I ride it at least 2500 miles/year. That's 5000 miles on a set of rear bearings (overtightened), tires (upgraded). A couple spokes, two innertubes, lots of chain.
Smaller wheels are stronger and lighter than larger wheels. Mountain bike wheels offer a better selection of aggressive tires for winter or off-road. I was looking for a bike with 26" wheels.
The rear Campagnolo rim was a good deal at BNB. Carl built this wheel, and it's provided excellent service through lots of load and vibration, except that time when I let all the spokes get loose.
The front rim, a daVinci V-22 I selected for the wheel I was building around the dynohub. I like all the features of the V-22: the deep center to ease tire changes, the rounded lip to reduce pinch flats, the lip extension to protect the sidewall from brake pads, and the general heavy build. In general, I really like this rim, but it's a little narrow for this bike. I think the big winter tires would be happier on a wider rim (they'd provide more flotation, and they'd fit better). Further, the brakes on the Sawtooth were spaced for a wider rim.
The dynohub, a Shimano, is perfect for my vision of this bike. If this were supposed to be a touring bike, I'd go for something with less drag. But I'm comfortable leaving this hub out in the city, and I don't mind the little additional exercise. The first time out with this hub was in pretty deep snow, and I felt that the drag caused the front wheel to slip a bit. This might have been a brake issue, though. I'm not sure if I should be looking forward to more extensive snow-performance data or not! Shimano's got a new hub that's looking pretty spectacular.
I started with some 1.75" Schwalbe slicks that I'd been using on my old Trek. The folks at Broadway recommended them as a good city tire, given that I'd asked for big and slick. They had a nice reflective band, were pretty enormous so I didn't feel badly abusing the bike on curbs, etc. And they were a lot quieter and produced less vibration than knobbies. And I thought they were faster.
Since then, I've been coming down in tire size. I imagined touring on a bigger tire, but not a slick mountain bike tire like the Schwalbe. I'd been wondering about something in the 1.4" range, and when some used Ritchey 1.4" Tom Slicks came into BNB, I grabbed a couple. (Three, to be exact, two with folding beads.) I really like this tire, though I might even go a little smaller, perhaps if there was a 1.3" out there.
I don't think I'd go smaller than that, though. I have this theory of flats....
In winter, I run Nokian Extreme 296 studded snow tires.
This bike started around some Nokian Extreme 296s. The new version--
the 294, looks even more wonderful. These rock. When they arrived,
I felt as if a venomous snake had been shipped instead of bicycle tires.
Hakkapeliitta W106. This is what I should be running--it's lighter than the Extreme, and it's got studs only down the middle, where they're useful in the sort of city riding I generally do. And it's cheaper. If I'd made a single-speed for playing in the deep snow, I think the Extremes would be the right choice, but since the fixed-gear makes for difficult transitions over obstacles, there's probably an argument to be made that I can't really apply the Extremes fully.
The studs are noisy. Really noisy. Except in snow, where the whole bike is whisper quiet--it's really an experience. But on pavement they make noise. On sanded roads, they crackle. On ice they sound like they're scoring acrylic. When I took them off in Spring 2004 I realized my wheel was making all sorts of noise. The bike felt loose, too, like the headset was loose or a wheel wasn't tightened down or something. But I rode some 20 miles before thinking I should really look into the wheel noise. I had eight spokes completely loose: easily tightened by fingers. I don't know how that wheel had managed not to collapse. Over the next few days after tightening it up, I lost something like three spokes.
When I started thinking about this bike, I did all sorts of math and decided that I wanted to spin 90 rpm at roughly my average speed of 13 MPH. This works out to something like 52 gear-inches. I told this to Carl, and he said that was absurd. We found a really nice 18-tooth cog, and so he tried to get as big a chainring on as he could.
He was unable to get a 52 on there the way he'd liked. But, by beating a deep crease in the chain stay, was able to manage to fit on a 48. Which he thought was low. I'm like, "that's fine."
Unsurprisingly to me, my knees were hurting after 2 miles. I had to recover for a day after a 4 mile ride. I walked over to Harris and got a 39-tooth chainring.
This was perfect for some time--though I did spin pretty badly down the hills, but I could make it up them after a long ride, in the cold, upwind, in the snow. So that was the state of things for a while. Then I added the generator lighting, which took off 10% of my power at night (like going from a 39 to a 43, I suppose). And then one day Asher caught up with me on the bike path, and I tried to ride with him for a couple of miles, and decided I needed a bigger chainring. So now I'm gingerly up to a 42, and I can climb Highland Avenue. We'll see how it goes in the winter.
The rear rack is a Tubus Cargo. A serious rack, its 90 lb. capacity is twice that of just about every other rack.
I've seen their new Logo rack on a beautifully-equipped touring bike (imagine the thinking that went into this bike and then improve it in every way), and I love the Logo's low placement option. Perfect, since now I have a reason to keep this rack on the bike.
I'd love a front rack, perhaps the Jandd spotted on the above-mentioned tourer. With some groceries and a laptop, the center of gravity on the bike is behind the seat tube, making carrying it up the stairs difficult, to say nothing of the handling.
Chain is 1/8" BMX/track chain, since the rear cog is a wide track cog. The front chainring is "normal" width, but it's not ramped or pinned.
The chain gets bathed regularly during the winter, which is rather a pain. I've started heating the chain in a bath of motor oil to clean it; the standard procedure of taking off the chain and washing it multiple times in a 2-liter bottle doesn't seem to work all that well: as soon as I go to re-oil, the White Lightning lift all sorts of stuff out. I should experiment with other cleaners/lubricants--paraffin looks particularly interesting for the winter.
What I'd really like is a fully-enclosed chain case. Spotted one on the web once, but have since lost the reference. Will look or manufacture someday.
In all seasons but winter, I run SKS P50 fenders.
Full coverage fenders are great. Some folks toss on a little thing in the rear to avoid the skunk stripe up the back. A full fender in front keeps my feet a lot drier, and having it come up past the horizontal means the wheel doesn't toss up a spray that I then ride into.
Full fenders don't keep off the rain, but rain isn't nearly as unpleasant as water that's been on the road. The latter is full of grit, and it seems much more likely to leave moldy boots for reasons I don't understand.
These fenders are a little big for the winter tires, and I find the knobbies throw a lot less water than the slicks. Further, if you're going to be out in inclement weather in the winter, there's going to be serious clothing involved: it's less of a burden than in the summer where a trip in the rain is pretty casual.
There was more research that went into selecting this light setup.
When I picked out this frame, Carlos was quite insistent that he would replace the handlebars. Red, steel, all quite Wrong. I, on the other hand, was quite taken with them. I insisted. Carlos insisted. I insisted. Eventually I won him over.
After about a year I did cut them down quite a bit. They were too wide to get past in my hallway, and they were in danger of taking out car mirrors if I was in traffic. They were absurdly wide. They're still wide, and they're a good three inches narrower than they were.
The pedals are nice road pedals without any clips. I've gotten used to riding the fixed gear without any restraint, something that surprises most folks. I have cold feet, so in the winter I wear big boots (sometimes steel-toed work boots; waders if it's wet, or Sorels if it's really cold). They wouldn't fit in normal clips, and I haven't seriously considered fitting cleats to my full array of winter boots.
So the pedals are fancy road quills. The little bump catches a spot in most of my boots so they don't slide around much. It's worked pretty well.
And as a side-effect, I'm able to skip-stop a light fixed gear without clipping in (wearing boots on clipless pedals, no less). (Well, I did it that one time....)
For a long time I didn't put a bell on this bike, but then was out on a bike with a bell and really appreciated it. So I got a bell/compass thing, but the compass didn't point North enough of the time to make it trustworthy, so I traded it for a beat up red Incredibell. It works great as a bell.
Well, hypothesis, really. I don't have enough data to really substantiate a theory.
Underinflation causes flats. Specifically, pinch flats. The more sidewall you have, the less this becomes an issue.
High pressures cause flats. The harder a tire is, the more likely it is that broken glass will push through the tread. I think this may also apply to wire from worn automobile steel belts, but I'm not so sure about this. Certainly steel belts pose a greater hazard than glass in my experience.
I ride in the street where cars have pushed away much of the hazards. There are fewer potholes here, too.
Brakes cause flats. U-brakes particularly.
Innertube creep. The best kind. Explosive.
As I assemble this page, I'm struck by the photo of the bike taken in early 2003. The complexity has obviously increased dramatically, and it's become a more useful bike to get around with, and it's still great fun to ride. But perhaps it has lost its simple beauty. Perhaps it's this winter I should take that spare frame, build up another fixed wheel, and return to that tall, simple, winter ride....