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.
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."
This is my campus bike now. Liza works a block from the Centennial Trail, so she has my original campus bike at her office for lunchtime stolls. Astute readers will recognize this ugly mutha as the one and only, Shogun. It just keeps on giving. The rear rim is splitting/cracked, so to keep the brakes from aggravatin' the situation, I'm running the bike in fixed mode.
Birds of prey. Praying.
More coal going to China. Anderson Road.
Marshall Creek. Marshall Road.
FLT at Marshall Road. Not ridable by me.
The intent here was to capture the oppressive monochromatic turd of winterness by juxtaposing a b-slap of redness. Didn't work. And of course that's the camera's fault.
See that hard plastic blade on the thumb of my glove? That is friggin the stupidist glove feature ever. Here's the scenario: cold, frozen, drippy nose. Wipe said nose violently with your thumb, as you are wont to do. That smarts.
Bummer.
"This is what my girlfriend would look like without skin."
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.
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...
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.
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
Once winter comes, it will come back to Spokane and go back to ice bike mode (fixed + studs).
I swapped out the drops for Origin8 Space Bars, which are getting a lot of play these days. I have them on the cycle truck and the MB2. They're a great no fuss, do-all, short-haul bar. I need a shorter stem for the this implementation though.
This is the "before" picture.
I put v-brakes on it. Super easy those vbrakes. They're hard not to love. Simple, cheap, effective. Pick 3.
I took the fenders off and swapped out the Pasalas with the WTB semi knob fatties. They're like 35mm and good at 60 psi for just about any dirt I'll be encountering.
I found this tube in the front wheel. Patch on a patch. I swore that chicanery off exactly one year ago today (weird). But, since they've held for a year, clearly the patch job is working, so I stuffed the tube back in thte tire.
I put a 18 tooth freewheel on the "free" side of the Surly hub. I'm rolling 42x18 which is ok for tooling around the river neighborhood. I swapped out SPDs for platforms.
Finally, I put the Tubus Fly rack on there for the buckets. Or maybe I'll strap a milk crate on there, Ferry County style. We'll see how that evolves.
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.
Pretty good year. This year, I"m going to blast through this post. No pics. No links. No more than 1000 words. Wish me luck. Word count starts now:
Bikes: As usual many a comin and a going.
Those that went:
720 got Albatross'd and went to my brother Jamie. Long term loan arrangement.
Kogs with 26" wheels. Had this for a short time. Went to Councilman Snyder.
Kogs with 650b wheels. Had this for an even shorter time. Went to Ryan at P2P.
Blue "urban" RB-T -- it's not officially gone yet, but it will be soon. This will go to Alex.
CB-Zip: I had such high hopes for this bike. I sold it and shipped it somewhere.
Shogun: Went back to Patrick. Again. But I want it back again. It's my favorite fixed gear set up. Every time we sell this frame back and forth, the cost goes up. I figure I'll be paying about $100 for it on the next deal.
Yellow 94 RB-1: Went to Dylan. He's the bad-ass cat 4 (now Cat 3!) cross racer and web guru nerd that takes care of our P2P site. And my midnightcentury site. One lousy RB1 frame is really not enough.
White 89 RB-1: not sure if I really can even claim this went, since it only sat in my garage for a while and I never built it up. It was going to be my fixed gear, but the headtube was stretched. So it became Maddie's new bike.
God I have a problem.
Bikes that came in:
The Elephant. Rad bike.Love it.
MB-2. I've had this frame forever, but I resurrected it this year as a single speed snow and ice bike and I'm totally digging it. It's all set up with generator lighting, a rack, fenders. And it's wearing studs. Total go-to bike for most winter tooling around.
Liza's XO-1 -- not my bike, but I obsessed about it like it was my own. I'm really hoping she loves riding it next spring.
Maddie's Elephant - same story. But she loves her bike way more than Liza appears to like her new bike.
Other bike notes:
Loving my cycle truck. Loving my 747. Solid bikes that will be around forever. I'm building up a set of sew up wheels for the 747. Crazy, right?
Rawland -- I've been carrying on about this bike a lot in the last few months. I ride it a lot. It just keeps getting better and better.
Current bikes-I-don't-have obsessions that need dealing with: Civia Kingfield, Surly Troll, hard tail mountain bike.
Advocacy and stuff
I don't feel like carrying on about this. A lot of bikey infrastructure has gone down on the streets this year and more is in the pipeline. It's good in that way. But hard bikey stuff that will really propel Spokane into a solid bike town is proving to be very hard. 2nd Ave is a good example. There's some hard design and political work there - we're good at plunking stuff down when the feds hand us the money and there's nothing but space on the roads. Blech. Blah. This is my last year on the BAB. And I'm ok with that. The good news is that we have a great set of applicants coming in to fill BAB vacancies. These are smart, dedicated, passionate people.
P2P is doing good. The space has worked out. We've got a good cushion of money in the bank to allow John and Ryan to maintain their hours through the slow season. We are serving a lot of people down there. Hopefully, we'll see more open hours in the spring. Growth is slow but steady. That's good.
Experiences and Riding
I had a bunch of great bike trips this year. Justin and I started the season with a great over-nighter. It was 180 miles and a great camping spot. A strong start.
Alex came over twice for trips to CDA Nat'l Forest. Those were just flipping rad.
I think one of my favorite memories this year though was the overnighter to Badger Lake with about 7 friends. It was so cool to be around great friends at that specific time, when my mom was so sick. Even getting kicked out of the camp spot by the police wasn't so bad.
I missed the midnight century this year. I hate that. But it was really unavoidable. I won't miss the next one.
Cross season was uneventful. My mom died right before the season and I just couldn't get crazy about cross. I did 3 races and had a good time, but I gotta say, those far away races are just hard to pull off for me. I really hope we can see more races closer to Spokane next year.
Generally, the mileage was better than last year, but not as good as 08. I think I enjoyed riding more this year though than I have in a few years. I've never really tracked mileage. But I sort of track fun. I had a lot of bike fun this year.
Rack building has been fun. I look forward to finishing my first rack and hopefully building one for Liza's new XO-1.
I've also made more of an effort to become a bit better at wrenching. I built a lot of wheels this year and I feel pretty good about my wheel building. I've learned from Glen that being a good bike mechanic is really about paying attention to details and taking the time to get the details right. That's a hard one for me because I rush through things and try to just get them done.
Ok. that's it! I blew my 1000 word goal. But there's nary a link or photo! Lucky you.
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.
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.
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.
Rivendell is a great bike company. The company is Grant Petersen, who should pretty much get credit for the 650b American renaissance and for the keeping embers glowing on steel, lugged bikes for the last decade or so.
About 5 years ago I bought my first Rivendell frame, the Atlantis. It was by far the finest touring bike I've ever owned. I've never owned another touring-specific bike, but the Atlantis was a great versatile bike for rough stuff and touring. A year or so later I bought a Quickbeam, which I sort of regret selling. It too was a great rough stuff trail riding tough guy fixed gear bike.
I've got a thing for orange bikes.
I got rid of my Atlantis when I discovered that I prefer standard gauge/diameter tubing. Keeping a $2000+ bike hanging in my garage for the occasional loaded tour didn't pencil out for me. Same deal with the Quickbeam. I preferred the ride of my 720 and my Shogun, both standard diameter tubed bikes and both were silly cheap.
I should mention that many people could care two licks about tubing wall thickness or diameter. My not preferring this tubing doesn't mean jack to most. And that's the way it should be. I like the springy lively noodley feeling of flexy steel frames.
Your basic Rivendell build.
Anyway, this is all a preamble on the Sam Hillborne, which is a frameset that Rivendell is now selling. I like this bike. I think this is a great foundation for a great all rounder, high-trail bike: CX, commuting, touring, trail riding. This bike is smart. The size 56 can take 700 x 44 mm tires (39 mm with fenders). It's got braze-on's galore. And it's a great value: $1000 for the frameset. It's lugged and has a nice paint job.
Reading this, I realize this reads like some kind of phony ad. But it's not. I get nothing from Rivendell. I rarely order stuff from them anymore, but I am very thankful to Grant Petersen for being around and making it ok to ride comfortable bikes with platform pedals, high bars, and steel tubing in an industry where high tech and racing rules all. Reading Grant's stuff was a huge part of my re-entry to bike riding as an adult. I will follow Rivendell and Petersen as long as they're around.
15 days: The Shogun. Fixed gear loveliness. 
13 days: The Rawland. 
