Big changes are afoot at the Speare house. Liza has a new job. I am shifting my status at work to vendor so I can go back to school. Yow.
So not much to carry on about on the bike front at the moment. I'm not feeling the burn for CX this year, but maybe that will come as this transition settles out.
A few bikey bits:
Shogun in river mode. City mode looks the same minus the pole and one bucket pannier.
I've been riding the Shogun for all city riding over the last couple weeks. It's mostly perfect. I'll be commuting (mostly by bus) to Cheney in a few weeks. I plan on using the Shogun and the Bridgestone Hack as my main campus daily drivers. When I can swing the ride home, I'll take the 747or the Elephant.
Speaking of Elephant.
Here's a recent bike Glen finished. I friggin love this bike. I love the color scheme and the fact that it's rolling 26" (559!) wheels on an "average" size frame. Man I love this bike. This is before the Tubus Fly and hammered Honjos go on and the black bars are swapped for silver. I'll try to get a shot before the customer comes for it next week.
One point of school/job shift is to manage summers off to optimize river time. Life's too short to work all summer. We'll see if I can pull that one off....
There's a nice, mostly flat dirt road out-and-back between our place on the Kettle and my uncle's place about 8 miles away. That makes for a nice cruise. The Legolas isn't making weird sounds anymore since I replaced the front wheel.
Anyway I guess the point of this post is to inform you that you should lower expectations even more than normal for blog content...
My mother-in-law lives out in the Valley, about 3 blocks from The Bike Hub. This is the new Trek dealer in the Valley. A guy named Chris is the owner -- he was formerly at Wheel Sport - East.
I rode out to my MIL's place yesterday after work and stopped by the Bike Hub. It looks like a bike shop -- a new one. Looks like he's just scraped the money together to get the place rented and filled with bikes. Not a lot of finish or frills. Looks to be pretty straight-forward line up of standard bikes. I didn't detect a single overwhelming direction by the stock that was on the floor, though judging by the pictures on the wall and some other clues, if I had to guess the main interest of the owner it would be downhill mountain biking.
Dig this wheel truer. It was sitting on a table in the middle of the floor. I kind of like it. And I kind of want it. For dudes like me that just built the occasional wheel, this would be a dandy stand. It's made by ELDI -- the same company that makes the world's standard pedal wrench. German. Stout stuff.
This amazingly wretched photo is supposed to show the old Shogun frame. This is basement lighting and good phone camera combo for you.
I've been sort of jones'ing for a fixed/single thing for a while. It's been a while since I rode a fixed gear on a regular basis and I think I'm going to get the old Shogun going as a fixed. Standard build: Nitto Noodles, 32mm Pasalas. Good for trails ya know!
Smooth bearings are one of life's simple pleasures. Our tandem is running a six-speed freewheel. I have this fear that some day, we'll be out riding it and the axle will break. The freewheel design, compared to the freehub design, is more prone to failure since the axle is sticking way out there without any support. So, I wanted to put a hub, with a freehub, on the tandem. I found a great deal on a NOS 7-speed tandem hub (threaded for drum brake) on ebay. I got it for $40 shipped. Nice. It has an OLD of 145. Our Burley has an OLD of 135. So, Glen, of Elephant fame, got the assignment to make our Burley have an OLD of 145. To do that, he removed the bottom bracket so he could secure the bike as he expanded the rather beefy rear forks. When he removed the bottom bracket, it sort of fell apart in a way that bottom brackets shouldn't. A quick consultation with Alex (knower or finder of all bike info -- no matter how exotic or esoteric) revealed that the early-model Burleys use a sort of non-standard sealed cartridge bearing fitted into the bottom bracket with a super-high-zoot-full-on-
anaerobic bonding agent. That's how I found myself at McGuire Bearing company on East Trent yesterday. They had this cool shit on the counter:
Can you find my bottom bracket? That's pretty easy.
Here's the Shogun I built up. My "back pedaling" muscles are way out of shape. Those are the muscles on the top of your thighs. I guess those are the quadriceps. It's great riding a fixed gear again. I love climbing hills on a fixed gear: they just force me to push up them so much faster than I do when I'm downshifting and downshifting and downshifting. I'm drenched in sweat when I get home and it's not that hot. I think I'm going to ride this bike every work day for a month. It really forces fitness, which is what I need on the eve of CX season.
Dig this Mongoose. This was outside REI earlier this evening. The rad dude (or lady, can you imagine??!!) riding this bike was not obvious as I scanned the store. Maybe he or she was in the bathroom or something. I really looked around the store.
Remember all that talk about being satisfied with the bikes I have now? Well that was crap.
I've been sitting on this hub for about a year now. It's a Sachs Torpedo Duomatic: a 2-speed kickback coaster-brake hub. Liza had an American version (Bendix) of this hub on her Schwinn. This hub came off my old Raleigh 20 that ended up going to Tarik.
Anyway, my plan is to build up a wheel around this hub and make the Shogun into a big-kid bike. What this means to me is just a simple bike with a coaster brake: no fenders, no rack. It will have platform pedals, 700c wheels with 32 mm Pasalas. I've got some Orgin-8 Space Bars (rip-offs of the One-one Mary bars). It'll be a fun bike for fast cruising, trail riding, and summer commutes.
There are a couple things slowing me down though.
Thing 1: Frame Crushing
This hub as an OLD of 112. OLD is "over lock-nut distance," which corresponds to how wide the rear fork of your frame needs to be to accommodate the hub. 112mm is narrow by today's standards -- which are at the narrowest, 126 mm, but they're more commonly 130 or 135 mm.
The Shogun has 130 mm rear dropouts. I plan on squeezing and cold-setting the rear dropouts to 117 mm to deal with this hub. Actually, I plan on taking the frame to John at REI to have him do it. Last time I farted around with bending up a frame, I screwed it up.
I think the tool to have for this operation is the Hozan frame tool. The Hozan tool encourages a more deliberate, iterative approach to spreading and compressing the fork ends. I have the Park Frame and Fork Straightener, which is a much more brute-force lever deal that encourages me to over-do it and make huge corrections in a single operation. Yes, I'm blaming my ham-fisted, gorilla technique on tools.
Squeezing the frame doesn't matter much to a steel frame if it's done right. It's the kind of thing though that slows me down because I feel like I should do it. I've got the Park tool, I've got the dropout alignment tools, and even a frame alignment gauge. I feel like a total wanker not doing this work when I have all these tools. But, as any wanker gear head will tell you, I don't have all the right tools. The Hozan tool would be nice to have here as would a work stand that attaches to the bottom bracket for ultimate stability.
My way out of this is to tell myself that I'll continue to get better at the rear triangle thing by working on bikes at P2P. We see some bent up, mangled stuff there that are good practice frames to learn on.
Thing #2: The Hub Overhaul
Before I build the wheel, I want to overhaul the hub. I've not taken apart a 2-speed kickback before. I've taken apart a few single-speed coaster brake hubs and I've had good success. To balance those successes, I have a half-disassembled Sturmey Archer 3 speed in my garage that will likely never be put back together. So, I've been putting the overhaul for a while.
Looking at the exploded diagram of the Sachs, I think I'll be alright. Last night, I found this guy's pictorial essay on reassembly, so I'm very confident now. I just need to set aside the chunk of time to do it. Perhaps this is how I'll spend my Friday night. Woo-hoo, who says I don't know how to par-tay?
Liza and I had a night out last night. After Maddie fell asleep, a babysitter came by and sat. We headed downtown. The picture here is not very good. Not to make lame excuses, but it was taken while going up Adams street (good climb on cobblestone) with a camera that has no view finder. I took about 5 of these. This was the best one.
Anyway, it was about 20F last night and patches of ice, so Liza rode her studded Fuji fixed and I rode my studded, geared bike (the Shogun). I re-learned a couple lessons last night.
1. Riding a fixed gear in super cold weather keeps you warm on the downhill rides. I knew this, but the lesson was driven home last night. Our house to downtown is about a 400 foot elevation drop over about 2 miles or so. On a fixed gear, you're backpedaling and engaged with the hill -- you're working a bit and keeping the blood circulating. On a geared bike, this is a coast. You're just sitting there, literally just sitting exposed in the cold and getting colder with the wind making you colder yet. Man! I froze on the way downtown last night. Dang.
2. Coasting doesn't require pedaling. When you pedal, you will notice potentially bad stuff in the chain, gear, and shifting departments right away. Not to mention that the gear and shifting departments are non-existent on a fixed.
I've been riding my Shogun lately on longer snowy rides. I typically come home and leave it in the cold garage. The drive train, the rims, everything is packed with snow and ice. Eventually that melts and takes all the grease/oil with it. Riding home last night, I couldn't get over how noisy and chunky the chain was. When I shifted down the rear cog, a mousy squeak complemented the grindy chunky chaconne (I've been waiting to use "chaconne" for a long time ... years actually). Aside from the noise, I could feel it: that unsettling notchiness feel -- like a cup and cone bottom bracket that is too tight; or a chain link that is halfway busted and just ten pounds of torque away from popping off.
Then I checked out the chain this morning.
Chains are not supposed to be orange and dry. I've never been much for maintenance, but I've got to do better than this. It would not have been a good thing if I had popped a chain link at 11:50 PM, at 20 F, with no cell phone. Of course I carry a chain tool and an extra bit of chain. But when it's that cold, and after a couple drinks, and under the stress of babysitter overtime, that's about the last bit of bike work I want to attempt with numb fingers, with the exception of maybe, say, building a wheel.
So, I fed the chain this morning and it sucked up gobs of oil. I tried the "wet" oil this time. Does it really matter what kind of chain oil we put on these things? If everyone has their absolute favorite that they "swear by," and each sworn by oil is different, then how can it really matter? On a ride out to Liberty Lake a couple months ago, I heard the little mouse squeak symphony warming up on my Atlantis. I ended up stopping by the QuickLube and borrowing a tablespoon of oil from their overflow bucket. Worked great, whatever kind of oil it was. My buddy Alex keeps a tiny bit of oil in a "Beano" container when he tours. That works too. I recently found a small eye drop container that looks like it may be suitable for carrying some oil. At some point I'll get around to filling it up and adding it to my fussy, long-haul tool kit.
Last year I did a year-end wrap up about my year cycling in Spokane. It was too long. My first resolution this year is to make the year end wrap up shorter. We'll see how that goes.
Bike Advocacy and City Stuff
Another banner year. Looking at the goals from last year (finish Master Bike Plan, hire a bike/ped coordinator, and do at least one infrastructure project), we did good. We hit two of three.
Although we didn't see any big projects complete, we made critical progress on laying the groundwork for real future progress.
The master bike plan is nearly done. It will likely go before the city council in the next month or two for adoption into the Comp Plan. The MBP is a big deal. It's a hard requirement for any real money to flow into Spokane for bike infrastructure. Here's my first post on the MBP about a year and half ago.
The other important milestone is that the city will now have a paid FT position for a bike/ped coordinator. Although the Bicycle Advisory Board has been pushing for this for many years, you can thank Richard Rush for pushing this through. Having a FT person in the city whose job it is to watch out for bike-related opportunities and to help the engineering folks do the right thing will be a huge benefit to the city.
Goals for 2009: secure money and do stuff. Now that we've got the plan, it's time to build. There may be some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to get funding for infrastructure next year: either through the stimulus package that Obama is proposing and/or SmartRoutes.
The Bikes
I could copy-paste this section from last year into this space and just change the bike models/names. When it comes to the comings and goings of bikes, I'm a predictable bastard.
I wrote up a post last week that pretty much lays out the bike plan for the up coming year.
Here are some lists --
Bikes that went away in 08:
Maddie's tandem: She's all solo now. I'm hoping Maddie will be game for the Burley in a few years. The Bike Friday tandem went to a family in Missoula.
Bridgestone RB-1: bottom bracket cracked. I'm not sure what to do with this frame. I kind of want to save the forks for something someday.
Shogun: This is just such a great frame. It went to Patrick, but it's coming back. I have neat plans for it. More on that in 09.
Garyized Trek 520: It's not gone yet, but it's no longer ridable as I'm already stealing parts from it. It's a fine bike, and will suit somebody perfectly. I want a bike that can haul a bunch of stuff, but I can just about haul the same amount on my RB-T "urban" bike. So the 520 overlaps too much.
New (or repossessed loaner) bikes in 08:
RB-T urban bike: About the perfect all rounder for me. I just wish it could take fatter tires. It's the hacked version of this beauty.
Burley Tandem: the webpage that this links to says the tandem is for sale. It's not. I need to update that page.
2009 Goals: stick with the current crop of bikes the year through. I can't imagine unloading the 747, Rawland, or the RB-T. But I may build another bike or two. I already have a plan in mind to bring back the Shogun.
Last year I had a goal of not buying as much crud. I didn't do so well there. This year, I'm going to go again at that. The bike projects Liza and I have queued up don't require a ton of new parts. And we're going to try and buy used where ever we can, especially now that Liza is no longer wrenching at REI, which means our sweet 30% discount goes away. Ouch.
Community
In the community arena, it's been a great year for cycling in Spokane. The participation numbers for Bike-to-Work week and SpokeFest were both a huge surprise to organizers. These were fun events. I'm looking forward to SpokeFest especially this year.
Pedals2People continues to grow. We ended our Village Bike Project by shipping 200 bikes to Seattle to combine with BikeWorks for a shipment to Ghana. Our garage DIY community shop took off this year. We did a bunch of free bike tune ups. And we got our 501c3. There's a bunch of stuff in the hopper for next year. Mainly: getting our free bike tune ups dialed in and getting another DIY community space up and running.
Cyclocross racing community. This is a great community of people. More on that here.
Jeff's FBC took off this year; it was cool to see over 70 people turn out for the prom ride on a warm spring night, buy it was just down-right amazing to see nearly 40 turn out for the Festivus ride through the cold snowy December night.
Joel at the Inlander wrote a nice piece last summer on the state of cycling in Spokane. And if you're a careful and diligent reader of the Slice, you'll see pretty frequent bike-related thoughts from Paul Turner in the Spokesman-Review. But it's Jon at OTM that continues to treat cycling as a mainstream topic. I'll continue to write my monthly column for Jon in 2009 and I think we'll probably see even more cycling content in his pages over the next year.
Goals for 2009
1. It would be great to see the bike community and community at large work together to do some in-town bike races. There's talk of hooking a criterium into the Garland Street fair. If I had a buck for each time I heard someone talk about how cool it would be to have a down town criterium, I'd be a millionaire. Maybe this is the year to push that? Any takers?
2. Continue to bring in new riders. If you are on a bike already, smile and wave to the newbies, especially those that are clearly replacing car trips. If you know people that are the fence about cycling for transportation, help them make the leap by offering to help them learn about routes, gear, cycling in traffic, etc.
Riding
This has been probably my best riding year ever. The highlights:
Midnight century. I can't stop going on about this ride. It was the best of the year.
Alex visit: Alex is a great friend. The majority of our interaction is online and a few minutes a month having lunch when I'm in Redmond for work. In the last few years we've taken a couple tours together, but this year we didn't have a plan. So it was nice that things sort of fell into place for a quick Alex visit. We rode, drank beers, and did an over nighter out to Badger. A nice weekend.
Trail and dirt road riding. I've always sought out the dirt roads, but the Rawland inspired me to do a lot more trail riding.
Hills. My relationship with hills is continuing to evolve. I think my favorite hill right now is Sunset Highway to WW drive(?) -- up to Indian Canyon, the back way. It's a weird route, but I like pushing from Gov't Way and seeing how well I can maintain to the top of the route. It's strangely satisfying. I like that Hill because it's not stupid steep and it's pretty steady. And it's just the right length. Maybe 2 miles?
Riding with Maddie. Since she learned how to ride on her own, it's really been fun to watch her pick up little skills: signaling, braking, maintaining a straight line, etc.
Goals for 2009:
1. Race cyclocross again. In 2009, I'll attempt to race B's. That's a big jump for me. We'll see how that goes.
2. I'm not going to make an overnighter goal this year. I'll take what I can get. Same with a long tour. I'd love to take off for a week, but that's a hard sell right now.
3. I've got to the the long way to my Dad's. It's the Springdale-Hunter-Gifford-Barstow route that I've not done for almost 2 years! And it's a great ride.
I think I broke my first new year's resolution already. Damn.
There was a one-year period where I really embraced the whole fixed gear thing. That was about 8 years ago. In fact, one my first posts on this blog was about the HD trails and riding it on my Quickbeam. Like a lot of folks, I discovered the idea of fixed gear through Sheldon Brown. But the guy that really inspired me was Kent Peterson. He would post epic ride reports on the mile43 website that he did on his fixed gear bike. And I'm using that beat-to-hell term, epic, for real: we're talking about rides from Seattle to Minnesota. In like, 6 days, loaded with gear. What the hey?
After a while, I enjoyed gears and the fixed gear went away slowly. I gave my favorite fixed frame to my brother. But I ended up building up a fixed gear every spring as a way to force myself back into shape. And I've always built one up for ice riding in the winter.
So this year I put the Shogun together as my ice bike and there really wasn't any ice. I rode it to the store a couple times, but otherwise, it's just been in the way in the garage. Last night, I decided that I'd go back to the spring-conditioning-on-the-fixed-gear-bike approach, and so I put some 32 mm Pasalas on the Shogun.
Bars are sort of jacked up. I' need to bring them in and level them off.
I expected the commute home to suck for a number of reasons: patchy ice, my miserable out-of-shape-self. Well, that's only two reasons. But the commute ruled. All that snow you see in those pictures is barely snow. There's very little ice under it and it presents almost no resistance. Overall, my fitness level does suck, but the fixed gear really smooths out the effort, which is higher, but reasonable and consistent until you get to the hills.
The last couple miles of my commute is all climb. Not monster climb, maybe 400 feet, but it's steady with some little kickers. The fixed gear forces the hammer down. That's what I need.
I may put some CX tires on it for a bit of trail riding. That FLT section of parallel trail is kind of perfect for this bike.
When I got home, I found a package on the front porch. It's Volsen's old Kogswell. He rode the shit out of it, bringing it on his South American tour. He went through Pat's Rackufacturing Institute and built a bitchin' rack for it. I was all set to find a home for it until he reminded me that he had adapting it for 26" (559) wheels, which makes it way more interesting. It'll probably become the new trusty turd. At least for a year or so.
Here's a picture of this frame when I owned it and it had 650b's:
I think it might look like that again. But with 559s. And a single gear. Verily.
Seeing that picture reminds me of a wreck I had on that bike on the HD trails: the old front-tire wash out. Freaky stuff; I just flew like superman off the trial and down the side of the bluff. To this day, every time I go by that spot where it happened I tense up a bit.
Bike Advocacy and City Stuff We're on a roll. In 2009, the Master Bike Plan passed and is now baked into our comprehensive plan. The City hired a full time Bike/Ped coordinator.
Jon Snyder, another daily bike commuter (Richard Rush is the other) is elected to the city council. Although it doesn't appear that the region will land a $50 million dollar wad of cash from USDOT for active transportation any time soon, we have more work and attention going towards cycling than the region has ever known.
The goal for this area last year was to get some projects going. Off the top of my head, this year the Fish Lake Trail was given another few miles of paving and a nice trail head. (Last I heard, there was an earmark still surviving in a federal legislative bill to finish this trail -- by putting a bridge over the tracks). Five-mile road got a bike lane and will have sharrows on the descent come spring. We got sharrows (misplaced, but that will be remedied in the spring) on 37th and on SE Blvd. I know I'm forgetting something.
Next Spring we'll see completion of the downtown bike lanes (roughly: 4th St, Howard to Buckeye, Riverside, Jefferson). Hopefully, we'll find the money to stripe Addison heading north. The money for the completion of the Iron Bridge is available. That's my favorite by a long shot. There are likely others.
While it's wonderful that we're seeing this work done, it's still piecemeal and spending here represents a tiny fraction of the transportation monies spent in this area. This year we had at least 3 pedestrian deaths. Probably more. Councilman Snyder has made Complete Streets the centerpiece of his goals as a councilman.
In a nutshell, the concept of complete streets means that when the city does work on a street, all users of the street (car, pedestrian, cyclists, disabled, etc) are taken into account for the design of the street. Seattle adopted a Complete Streets policy a couple years ago.
My goal in this area this year is to help Jon get the word out on Complete Streets. There is a very-near-zero chance of the city adopting a Complete Streets policy if citizens are not demanding it. We must be vocal.
After watching the last few years of this cycling advocacy stuff from the inside out, I've realized that you must speak up. Often, it's just a phone call, or an email. I'm not talking about rushing city hall with pitchforks here. I have cycling friends that tell me that they are "not political." By taking such a stand, they are taking a political stand for the status quo.
The tandem. This has been around for a while, but we finally built it up and rode it. And I can't wait to ride it more next year.
The CB-Zip: an impulse buy that took a few weeks to engage my impulse. It's got studs on it so I've barely ridden it. I look forward to putting some super fat non-TG Pasalas on this baby in the Spring. I may do some overnighters on it too. On paper, this baby rocks. On the road, with studded tires, it's a monumental turd.
Shogun: this old chestnut had to come home. It has found it's true calling as a non-fendered, trial-riding, city-commuting, Pasala-wearing fixed gear. I grab this bike a lot.
Kogswell: Dang. I guess this was sort of an impulse buy too. Great frame. Takes 26" wheels and has standard tubing. I got a silly deal on it. This has to be some kind of record. I think I rode this bike about 2 miles before loaning it to Jon. See "bikes that went away" below.
Cycle Truck: as far as "stuff" goes; this bike tops the list for the year. It's a joy to ride. And without getting all gushy -- everytime I ride it, I really feel the love for Alex and his love of cycling that has evolved over the years that led him to design and build this bike. This bike is a snapshot, built of steel, of that love he has for cycling, as were the racks he's made for me in the past. Riding this bike, especially with a big load on there, really does something for me that's difficult to verbalize.
Bikes that went away or to loan in 09:
Kogswell: On loan to Jon Snyder. He calls it the "City Council One." We still need to get an internal hub and a chain guard on there for him. And I really want those Ritchey cranks back too. So there's work yet to be done. Pat and I are also going to build a rack for the front. It's damn hard to get that bike away from Jon. He rides the shite out of it. So making fixes and upgrades usually don't happen until something fails catastrophically.
Trek 720: One of my favorite bikes. My buddy Patrick is borrowing this beauty at the moment. I'll likely repo it in the spring.
The RB-1 is neither a comer or a goer. It's wrenching at my heart. It rolls great and it's fun to ride with those Hetres, but I don't like how it climbs or accelerates. That sounds cheesy, but I feel like I should really love it more. I may find a new home for this bike in the new year. Or I may just stash it back in the bike cellar and see how it feels in a couple more years.
Goals for the new year: couple the black RB-T. Ride Alex's new amazing bike.
Community
P2P The big deal here is the Pedals2People move. Come the new year. (Shit! that's in 2 days!) we'll have a new space out on East Sprague. There's so many moving parts here that need attention. We are very lucky to have a group of volunteers to make this work.
But we really need you: if you ride a bike, go to P2P next year and spend some money. We're pushing the envelope on this one and will really need community support to make a community bike shop. We'll have a yearly membership program that allows you access to a stand and tools any time, we'll have our world-record-setting pile of used parts for sale, and we'll have classes taught by pros.
Are you a pro mechanic that would like to donate your time to teach a few classes next year? We would love your help too.
Elephant Bike Glen has been around for a while building bikes quietly for a few folks in town. This year he really stepped it up and teamed up with Simon (previously of WS-south) to sell some fixed gear high zoot bikes. In addition, he's got a queue of CX bikes and a pretty steady stream of fixes coming in too. It's been fun to get to know Glen, whose bike experience always surprises me. I'm trying to get him to blog or find someway to share his vast bike related experiences, he's got so much potential blog gold there.
FBC Jeff and Lisa continue to grow this event. It's downright huge now. This year their hard work paid off with some international recognition. Not bad.
Bike events SpokeFest grew again. Cyclocross grew too. I think CX is a good barometer of general bike growth in a given area. It's a very accessible sport for cyclists to try. So seeing that grow is a good thing.
One goal from last year was to get some bike races in Spokane City proper. We didn't see that, but I've heard mumblings that such an event may coalesce this year.
Not sure if the Weds Night Bike Nerd Hang counts as a "Bike Event," but it's nice to sit around for a couple hours a week and focus on nerdy bike talk.
Riding Looking at last year's wrap-up post is sort of depressing in this department. If last year was my best year of riding, then I'd say this year, well, wasn't maybe the worse, but it wasn't as good as last year. I just didn't ride as much. Period.
There were some highlights though that ruled.
I did a bunch of spring and summer rides with Willy that were really fun. He's a good guy to ride with and I miss him.
I think the longest ride of the year for me was about 120 miles or so. I want to do more of these next year. And at least one 200+ miler.
I discovered a few new roads, but I think 2010 will be the year where I do some driving to riding for some overnighters. I want to spend some time up there by 4th of July pass area. I want to drive to Chewelah and then ride northeast into the hills.
I want to spend some time up in the Colville National Forest this year: up around Sherman and Boulder passes. I want to explore the dirt roads and old wagon trails back there, but I also want to do a day loop where I go over both Sherman and Boulder passes in one day.
I want to race the Walla Walla CX race at Stanger Farms. I want to go to Portland and watch the CX finals.
I work at a software company. Like all software companies, there are engineer types everywhere. And there's nothing engineering types LOVE more than data. Numbers man. Numbers.
Numbers can be combined and compared to create wonderful pictures of data, known as charts. But the holy grail of data views appears to be the pivot table. I once had a boss who wrote a bunch of the code for the Excel pivot table when he was a lad. He was really into that. Thankfully.
Here are some numbers. Mostly worthless, but I've been keeping track so I might as well do something with them. No pivot tables. Sorry Brent.
These are the bikes I've ridden on my commute for the last 193 days I've come into my office. The obvious commuter-style bikes rise to the top. The trail, dirt, CX, load-haulers -- which I ride a ton as well, don't show up much here.
So, without further ado. In priority order:
59 days: The Lyons 747
The finest bike I've owned. Rides fast and cushy. Love it.
44 days: RB-T, also referred to as, the "Urban RB-T".
Once the new Elephant comes, this bike will be redundant. I don't know if I can let go of this frameset though. It's such a versitile work horse of a bike.
These top two bikes make up the Contador and Schleck of the standings. All others are distant chasers. Note the drop off...
18 days: The CX RB-T, also referred to as, "my only bike with a soul."
15 days: The Shogun. Fixed gear loveliness.
I bought it, built it up, rode it. Sold it to Patrick (of Scoop fame). Bought it back. Built it up, rode it. Sold it back to Patrick. Patrick still has it. But I wouldn't mind having it back. It's my favorite all-rounder fixed gear: equally happy on the High Drive Trails and for the (very) occasional commute. I have a an old RB-1 frame in the hopper that may replace this gap in the line up.
13 days: The Rawland.
This only goes to work with me when it's deep enough snow to put the monstor motos on there. Otherwise, it's a mountain/dirt/trails/overnighter bike.
11 days: The Hacked RB-1, also known as The Resurrecto.
I miss this bike sometimes. It's a fun bike. It was really fun on long dirt rides where you want cush, speed, comfort, and fast handling. It went to a good home, so it shall be resurrected again someday.
11 days: Trek 720.
Kitted up in this picture as a fixed gear in the ice. Now, this one sees a lot of use on the weekends as an 8-speed porteur. Good guest bike with the 8-speed hub in there.
9 days: The SH-80 Cycle Truck.
I ride this bike a lot on the weekends and early mornings with Maddie. We have a little seatbelt figured out on there for her now. While I don't do a ton of miles on the SH-80, I tend to use this bike more frequently than most of my other bikes for tooling around and quick runs -- it's set up with campus pedals and an easy/comfy riding position, so it's easy to grab when you're not in a big fat hurry. Lighting system and a new fork are forthcoming.
6 days: Kogswell.
A friend of mine gave me this frame. I had some forks for it, built it up, and rode it around for a few weeks. The frameset has just recently found a new home -- but will take some time to become a bike again.
Man I wanted to like this bike. But it rode like the tubes were filled with cement. Sorry Ken.
2 days: Bridgestone MB-2.
Hacked with horizontal dropouts. More to come on this. I just scored a 7-speed internal hub with a coaster brake. The bike is now waiting on some bars from Alex and we'll have a good guest-snow-all-rounder-cruiser-trail bike.
From: Jon Eberly Sent: 1/25/2012 11:15 AM To: John Speare Subject: If i had a blog this would be a great post.
Today on my way to school I stopped by the Shop to pick up cyclocross magazine from coffee joe. Deviating from my normal commute path I decided it'd be fun to go down the trails from perry district to liberty park. The trails were slicker than snot, and given that studded tires only give you so much additional traction, I fell and slid most of the way down.
I now had to make my way from liberty park to SCC.I chose to take the "scenic" routes through the train yards to avoid as much traffic as I could.After I had committed enough to the endeavor that I didn't want to turn back and find a different route, I realized the route I chose had its own draw backs.In between each track was a mini lake of ice cold water. I had many opportunities to practice my cyclocross mounts and dismounts but in the process soaked the wrestling shoes I was wearing.
After the impromptu train track swimming lessons I was relieved to finish my commute and get to school where I could warm up in the computer laboratory before class.I dismount and pull the shogun into the bike rack while reaching in my back pocket for my u-lock.
"Fuck," I said realizing my lock must have fallen out of my pocket when I took a slide down the liberty lake trails.I looked at my watch and realized I had 1 hour until class.Do I head all the way home and grab another lock or do I attempt to find my u-lock where I think I may have lost it?I decided to go find it.
Not knowing exactly where my u-lock fell out of my pocket I backtrack my path back to the park.If my feet weren't soaked now they sure are now as I was forced to cross the train yard once more.I make it to the park and begin my ascent of the icy trails.I scratched, clawed and pulled my way up the frozen trail utilizing any shrubbery to prevent sliding back down.Nearly at the top, lying right in the pristine ice, is my lock. I grab it and this time stuff it in my pannier and head back to school.
I took a different path this time that didn't involve any wayward train track crossings.I made it to school with minutes to spare, smiling, realizing this adventure is exactly the reason I ride my bike.
I put the ol Shogun back together tonight. It took me just over an hour. About 30 minutes of that was farting around with the front canti brake, then tossing it and using another, then fussing with that.
Basic build: surly new hub/deep V rear; deore/bontrager front; old Sugino cranks; 42/18 gearing; mostly dead Brooks, Noodles.
I'm pondering fenders for the spring.
If I put them on, I'll definitely for sure have them off for summer trail riding. I really like this bike stripped down, but I have to fight my urge to put fenders and lights on it.
Tiger always blesses new builds.
And on some dark rainy night I'll regret the "stripped down" approach for sure.
I'm also pondering, again, the SA 3speed fix hub. And I have dyno hub in the garage. Maybe I'll dial that all in for next winter.
The Fish Lake Trail is normally a route I avoid. With the exception of the dirt bit between Scribner and Fish Lake, it's basically a flat and boring ride. Before it was paved -- the part from Sunset Highway to about Marshall Cemetery was all dirt. And it was interesting dirt: some rocky parts, some single-track, some deep water sections during spring that turned to mud. Good stuff all around.
In fact, a couple years ago, I was sort of grumpy about it getting paved. That changed as soon as I saw how many kids and families and people started using it. And they jumped on it immediately. Hard to be grumpy about that.
The FLT in 2007. Before it was paved. This is right at the intersection of FLT and Marshall Road. It was always that quiet, even in the middle of the summer.
So I'm not really annoyed by the pavement any more. The crowds and the pavement also forced me to explore all the little feeder trails and dirt paths and old roadways that connect into the FLT, which, of course, it's a good thing.
Anyway. I've spent the week out at EWU, riding the bus to Cheney in the morning and riding home in the afternoon. Two of the days I rode the single speed chiller Shogun and two of the days I took the cross bike.
On three of the four days I ended up taking the trail. My mind is in the process of getting overwhelmed with school stuff. And school hasn't even started yet. Jumping on the trail, zoning out, and processing the brain-cram is a fantastic way to wind down. It's still a boring ride, but I've got my thoughts to keep me occupied.
As it turns out, I think I'll be taking the FLT frequently over the next couple years.
Gonna go for the ultra-short version
this year. Really. No links. on a miserable computer set up... pardon the formatting funk.
Bikes
Those that came
-- Shogun came back again. From
Patrick. Now Jon (of Eberlizer'ing fame) is borrowing that for the winter. It's
a great River Bike and will go back to that role in the spring.
-- Salsa Ala Carte – mountain bike.
Your basic 26” steel hardtail with Fox forks. Suites my riding perfectly. Yes!
I’ve tried 29’ers! --That half-fat bike thing. -- Legolas. Love it.
Those that stayed
-- MB2 -- The oldest bike in the
fleet. There's something about how low my bar of expectation for this bike is
and how it therefore over-delivers.
-- 747 and Cycle truck: consistent putter-outters.
-- Elephant v1 – love it. Soon to be
swapped out for Elephant v2 frameset
(slightly larger with different tubeset).
Those that left
-- Rawland. Not officially gone and
may not officially go. But it's disassembled and in frame state only.
-- Tandem – we finally unloaded it.
That was a hard one to let go of, but I did so knowing that there is a communal
tandem solution in the pipeline.
-- RB-T coupled bike. The horror!
Gone, but we’re all better for it. Really.
Liza/Maddie bikes
-Liza’s XO-1 city bike conversion was
a total and utter success, thanks in part to rack making with Pat and to the
fact that the green is rad.
-Maddie’s Elephant was her main go-to
bike this year.
-Pump track bikes exposed Maddie to
some new rides – most notably, thes Intense BMX race bike, a highly-coveted
bike among her friends in the neighborhood. She also has spent a fair bit of
time on a clunky Redline BMX that kind of rules.
-Next bike in the queue for Maddie is
a righteous mountain bike. The used bike has been purchased, the bits gathered
and mostly assembled… expect more here on that soon.
Advocacy and Stuff
2011 was the year of unwinding myself from Advocacy stuff. I grabbed Liza too. In March I finished with the Bicycle Advisory Board, which was a huge weight off my shoulders. My personal goal there when I joined 5 or so years ago was to work with Bob and co to get a damn Master Bike Plan. Nothing significant could happen with out it. Ever since that passed, I felt like attempting to scale the next peak there would just take more than I could give. It was great to be done with that.
There's a much bigger and a well-organized set of up and coming advocacy folk joining the fray to fight through this stuff now. With the passage of the Complete Street Ordinance, the game has been ratcheted up another huge notch. Well done to Kitty and Jon on that -- for pushing and driving that huge coordinated effort to pass the ordinance.
We also handed off Pedals2People. We started that with friends 5 or so years ago and it was a great thing to do, but at some point we felt we needed to let go and see if we actually built something that could survive without us. Until we became involved in building up P2P we never could have appreciated the amount of effort it takes to create and sustain such an organization. Likely, had we known, we never would have attempted it. Such is the benefit of ignorance. Liza especially has spent a shitpile of time in the background holding up the P2P organization. Seeing her set her self free of this has been great. P2P is in great hands -- a new prez, a smart board, amazing volunteers, bad-ass shop employee, a great new spot, and a few thousand in the bank -- the foundation is there. It will be fun to sit back and see how it goes.
Unrelated to advocacy, but related to the overall effort of cutting back -- I wrote my last "Every Day Cyclist" column for OTM in December. Hank (Shallow Cogitations) will be picking that up for the new year.
Experience and Riding.
Overall this year was marked by a frustrating level of weird health issues. The lung thing took me out for what seems like 1/2 a year in the early part of the year. Once I finally recovered from that, I got clogged. Shit. It's still with me as I mind my thin blood. By Feb or March or so I should be fully whole.
Pump track -- best bike thing that happened this year by a way long shot. It's a huge commitment for buddy Pat and his reluctance to continue hosting it is easy to understand. But we have a good alternative in the pipeline and a small and enthusiastic willing work crew to hopefully turn the alternative into a solid reality.
River hang pretty much defined my riding this summer. There's just everything up there -- road, trails, deep Nat'l Forest fun. I plan on rocking it crazy this summer.
Midnight Century was fun. It landed right in a window of wellness for me and I had a great time.
I didn't do nearly the overnighters I wanted to do... mainly due to health issues. blech.
Goals
More overnighters
Faster Midnight Century time by 1/2 hour or so
Rock the Cat 4 CX races next year! Just one stinking top 5 finish please! (yes, that's rocking it)
Get Maddie mountain biking.
Most of August at the river with as much bike-riding friends and family as possible
I took a drive with the family to Seattle last weekend. On the way I made a list of stuff I'm going to sell. It's time to clear some stuff out that I'm just never going to build up, or stuff that I've built up and I'm not riding.
My Shogun Touring 500 frameset. Another great value frame. Nice tubing. Rides great, but I'm moving my fixed to the 720 for good.
Stuff: 650B tires that aren't Hetres, some bags, maybe some bars.
Prices, pics, and terms to come later. Expect non-give-away prices and fussy, high-maintenance preference for local sales because I hate shipping frames.
The Deep V on the Shogun finally gave up the ghost after many years of faithful service. After a bunch of procrastination, I finally got a new rim ordered and some spokes and set down to build up the new wheel today.
First step: get the hub out of the old wheel. Liza serenades while sipping a bourbon -- this makes the tedious job of de-spoking a Deep V much better. She's singing "Tonight You Belong to Me."
Second step: lace it up. Doh! It's a 32 hole hub. That would be a 36 hole rim. Dammit. Thankfully, one of Liza's best tunes is "Always Look at the Bright Side of Life."
I went and checked out the trails off of High Drive. Where there's no snow, there's mud. So, no surprise there I guess. I got right off after about 20 feet. It looks like a lot of foot traffic is still on there.
The Shogun 2-speed now sports drop bars: much better. But it doesn't have fenders, which I intend to follow through with. This bike will be fenderless. But looking at how trashed my coat and pants and shoes get from just 10 or so miles of tooling around on wet and muddy pavement, I am thankful for the other fendered bikes in my garage. By running full fenders with a flap, you can avoid almost all road grime.
13 days: The Rawland. 
