SH-80 is back in business

I stole the rear wheel off the cycle truck a few months ago when the Kogswell showed up.

Alex recently gave me a rear wheel for the cycle truck. Then a couple days later, Justin showed up with a forgotten gem: the original rear wheel from the old tandem. The great thing about this old wheel is that it is threaded for a drum brake. The even better thing about the wheel is that it's super old 6-speed and only spaced at 135mm. So bam... I spun the old Araya drum brake on there and crammed the whole outfit into the SH-80.

When Alex made the cycle truck, he included a parking braking under the chainstays: a u-brake deal that is actuated by a downtube shifter. The fortuitous thing about using the u-brakes is that the brake mounts are drilled for a derailleur cable, so cable routing to the rear arm on the Araya drum brake came for free! Stuff never works out like that for me. I'd like to think Alex had that planned out.

By using a shifter to work the brake, I can use the brake as a drag for long descents with lots of weight -- and it won't overheat. Admittedly: this is an over-wrought and mostly unnecessary feature for how I use this bike, but I'd like to think I may find myself at the top of Sherman Pass someday with a full load to deliver down to the river.

Mileage-wise: this cycle truck has always been the trailer by a long shot. But measured by quality of rides, this bike is right up there. It's a great fit. And loaded up, it's just effortless to roll around on. I strapped the monster Wald on there and made a store run this morning. Lemon-squeezy.

Pretty forks

Alex made these for my cycle truck. Yes that's a Pacenti crown.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6

Tires and racks

P2P bound.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6

Cargo Turd

Rory just sent me pictures of the finished Cargo Turd. I love how this bike has stuck around. This frame was once mine -- I originally bought it at a garage sale for $5 and I rode the crud out of it before handing it off to Rory.

For more history, I have a fuji turd label on this blog. With this post, the fuji turd label has 19 posts! A proud history indeed.

Great looking paint job. I like the twin stays too. Nice touch.

Rory has been working on this project for a few months with Alex. It's the same basic design as the cycle truck that Alex made for me. More on Alex's blog.

Trivial load

A pile of rims is nothing. Liza hauled her 165 lb co-worker at FBC on Saturday. Then he hauled her 120 lbs. No failures. But apparently the rear wheel was a tad light at the stops.
I guess the new name should be SH-165.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

Light mount finished

I finished my first project at The Pat Sprute Institute of Rackufacturing and Finishing School last night.

It works man! I could probably spend more time with the finishing bits to really make it pretty, but I'll powdercoat it, so hopefully that will finish it nicely.

(Gratuitous tree house shot).


Next up: a new rack for the Elephant. Main requirements:
- Internal wiring
- Lower the deck to tie it into the fender
- U-lock holder
- Optimized for Swift bag.
- Light and pretty.


This is Maddie. Approaching the finish line to come in 3rd at the All-City Elementary Cross Country Meet. That kid just kills me! She ran against all the other fast 2nd Grade girls in the city (about 75 kids!). Clearly, the ability to come in the first half of any race is something that comes from Liza's side of the family. Lucky kid.

Cycle truck love

Yes. More love. Sorry for the soft tone of late. I'll go tough guy next week.

The announcement (and subsequent blog comments) of the forthcoming Civia Halsted cycle truck has reminded me that I've wanted to post a cycle truck update for some time.

While my cycle truck doesn't see anywhere near the miles my other bikes see, it is a peer in the "frequency of use" category.

I make a run on this bike at least every other day. Any time Maddie and I want to go to the park, or pick up dinner, or refill the growler, or run to the store, we hop on the cycle truck. In fact, Maddie doesn't really ride her own bike anymore. Why would she?

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, some quick history. Alex made this from an old Trek mountain bike. That story is here. This was his v1 attempt at cycle trucking. He just helped Rory make another one out of my old Turd frameset. Which is great to see. I got that silly frame for $5 at a garage sale and it has suffered mightily and provided many hours of hard duty for me. I love that it's getting re-purposed once again as a work bike. But I drift.

It's not clear to me exactly how I wormed my way into Alex's world to get his cast offs and v1's, but I enjoy the position. This cycle truck has been the top of the heap of Alex deals and I've had a number of Alex deals over the years. But I drift again.

So, here are some pics with some notes.
This front rack is new. I should've put my U-lock in the holder to illustrate its greatness. I'll be building a new front rack for my Elephant this winter. From now on: u-lock holders will be mandatory on all racks. It just rules.

The webbing with the carabiner is the seat belt solution. The law of the land here is Maddie is always seat-belted and helmeted when on the front of the SH-80. That's a good rule. The seat belt is actually the money piece. I can stop fast without worrying about her flying off. The pilot rule is also top speed of 10 mph when hauling passengers. It works out.

This photo shows one of the things I'd change, and something that Alex and Rory did change on their version. And that is putting the load and the wheel further out front. I'd slacken the head tube a bit and rake the bejesus out of the fork to achieve that. Tall loads on this bike interfere with cables at minimum and steering at worse.

One commenter on the Civia discussion emphatically disagreed with putting a double on a cycle truck. He thought a single was all you needed.

I'm not going to argue emphatically, but I like the range the double provides. On Sunday, I hauled 65 pounds of kid and gear on the front of this bike and another 35 pounds of gear on the rear rack and nearly 200 pounds of me along with 40 or so pounds of bike up the south hill. It's only about 400 feet of elevation gain over a couple miles, but it kept my heart going. I like having the 24x32 for that.

And I love taking the cycletruck out on club rides too. Or just keeping up with traffic when unloaded or lightly loaded -- 36/12 makes that pretty easy.

And I like the pant guard too. The beauty of the ubiquitous 110/74 BCD crankset makes such a setup cheap and easy.

Alex has made me a bitchin new fork. He's not 100% sure of this one. Really, he said he's only 99% sure that he likes the weld of the steerer tube on the fork. And that 1% bugs him. So he's built me a fork with the insanely wonderful Pacenti crown. Yowsa. See Rory's fork for example. In addition to being 100%, the new fork will also give me more clearance for the PB fender I have wedged in there.

I also have a new wheel on deck. Velocity rim with SA dyno/drum. I'll be building a light mount for this rack this winter. It will likely go under the deck and be protected. We'll see on that.

My favorite rear rack of all time in the world: The Tubus Fly. Why would anyone ever use anything else? Well -- if you regularly haul 50+ pounds, then the Tubus Cargo makes sense, but for EVERY other application on a standard "safety bike" the Fly is so perfect. More drift.

I like to use bucket panniers on this bike. It just feels right.

The B&M battery rear light will be replaced with the dyno version once I finish the wheel and hook up a dyno light.

The big ass bag is handy for coats, etc. It also holds two growlers perfectly. The double kickstand is essential, but needs to be cut down a hair. Full fenders with flap and pretentious RCW sticker completes it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Cat food run

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.9

DB's Pop Up restaurant

The idea is to create a mobile restaurant with super high quality ingredients that sets up quickly and at interesting places. At least that appears to be the idea to me. DB sent out an email telling friends he would be giving away burgers on the Fish Lake Trail on Saturday afternoon. He accepted donations in order to cover costs and to build the bank for the next Pop Up.



Good stuff. Great burger with local cow. DB made all the buns yesterday. They were great. I'm pretty sure the pickles and onions were home made too.



And of course the endeavor was pedal powered, or there wouldn't be a reason to put it on this blog.



Video by Mr McBurns. Bike by A. Wetmore.
space.

Kid haulin

Maddie has always been a good sport in trying out different bike-kid-hauling solutions. The bike trailer was her least favorite. She loved the companion carrier. And she loved the segelino. The tandem was fun for about a year.

But the latest version is great. Right up there with the segelino. I ride the SH-80 to The Scoop every morning for coffee. About once a week, Maddie wakes up early too and goes with me. This is how we roll.






The Scoop is about 5 blocks away. When we do longer hauls, like our Saturday morning run to Pear Tree Inn for the best breakfast on the south hill, we suit up proper with helmets and all that.

Load

Found these pics on my phone from this week's adventures.

This was a load of crud I took to Glen's house.


I've heard about this stairway connection (on Perry, connecting 18th to 19th, or 20th?) before. It was great to find it. But I didn't haul my hauler down the stairs. Going around took me about 6 blocks out of my way, but it was all down hill.

More cycle trucking

I've got the SH-80 pretty squared away. I picked up a fat bmx tire last week for $20 and got a double kickstand from REI. The double kickstand makes all the difference in the world. It's pretty frustrating trying to load up heavy stuff on a single kickstand. The double makes it super easy.

The front fender is running super tight. It was buzzing at me today, so I replaced the cheesy plastic clip with a thinner metal one at the fork crown. That gained me a few precious millimeters. We'll see how it goes. I have a feeling that the front wheel may end up with a campaign sign fender or a smaller tire. Smart money is on the coroplast.

Alex is building me another rack for this. He's going to take this one and give me one that is shorter and wider. It will also have a built-in U-lock holder and some cleats for tying down loads. Sweet!

I'm still amazed by how well this one rides with a load. The load in the picture is probably around 30 pounds. It's pretty effortless handling compared to 30 pounds in a pannier or even on my other front-loading bikes.

I've had a number of people ask me how it rides. I'll bring it to the next bike chat hang this Weds night (Benidittos, 5:30pm) for people to try out.

Ta-da! Cycle truck pictures!

Behold the Stuff Hauler 80, or the SH-80. (The previous name is not dignified enough and it overstated the official load-carrying capacity by a factor of 10).

I'm nursing a cold here so I don't have the strength to express my normal verbose big fat opinion on every little nuance of everything. But here are the pictures of the built-up cycle truck.

Quick thoughts:

-- I'm going to find a BMX tire for the front. Something cheap (compared to Schwalbe) with a wee tread and a round profile that is about 1.75 inches wide. Once again, I'm stuck wishing that the Panaracer Pasala (non-tourgaurd) was made in a weirdo size.

-- The most I've hauled on this bike was a measly 10 pounds or so. I really honestly couldn't tell there was a load up there. I'm amazed by how well this bike handles. I may have to follow Tarik's lead to determine the Pumpkin Load-Hauling Profile of the SH-80.

-- I like the Origin8 Space Bars for this bike. They feel right. They didn't feel right last time I tried to use them. I may tilt them down ever so slightly.

-- Most of the other bits are from the old Xtracycle. Joe is now the proud owner of said steed.

-- On the way: double kick-stand and a front fender.

-- In other related news: Alex, builder of this bitchin cycle truck, has been independently verified and universally recognized as a cool guy. I've gushed plenty here. So, enough said.