Parts and stuff

You wouldn't know it by reading this blog, but I do still ride a bit. I don't have a lot to say about my riding, because I feel like I've said it all before a few times. And I'm not in the mindframe of late to talk about policy stuff. So that pretty much leaves gear discussion for the time being.

Lately, I've been into the mountain bike. It's a fall/spring thing I guess. Glen told me a couple weeks ago that he had some tires for me. I finally picked them up today: they are Schwalbe tires -- Rock Razors - 650Bx 2.35".

I've only got one High Drive ride on them so far, but I immediately noticed the cushy volume difference compared to the 2.10" Maxxis I had on there before. I liked the Maxxis, but I was drifting a bit too much on the wet trails this past weekend and was looking for a bit more grip as the moisture settles in for the season.

You can see the big honking knobbies on the edges of tire -- this is what Glen liked about them and after an hour of farting around on the wet trails, I can see his point. As noted, I also really appreciated the volume - they've got reasonably soft sidewalls for a mountain tire, and I like that. The center has a bunch of small knobbies -- sort of Thunder Burt-ish, but a bit bigger and more spaced out, knobbie-wise. So they roll good-enough on smooth trails and pavement.

Take note of the sparkly white bike. That's not just picture-clean. That's the new John... Glen sort of busted my ass about wanting a white mountain bike since I'm not known for fastidious (or any) post-ride wipe downs. But that's the old John. The White Elephant will always be white. Disclaimer: the new John approach to post-ride fussery does not extend to other bikes btw... that's just too much work.

Fenders went on the Legolas. And by fenders, I mean a rear fender and a front coroplast fender. This is a temporary state. I sold the Purple Elephant to fund the parts for the incoming stock NFE. When the new NFE comes along, the Legolas will go back to normal mode. Great bike. Notice the platform pedals on there. That's another gear change that I'll discuss in a future post. It's a big change for me. 

The sharp observer will notice that the orange saddle pack is becoming the standard tool bag on my bikes. It's a cheap, just-big-enough solution for carrying the basic tools/tube. I like it because it's tiny and holds tight to the bottom of the saddle and doesn't encourage me to bring the kitchen sink, which I am wont to do with my previous solutions.

This bag change has actually been precipitated by my saddle changes. I'm done with Brooks. I have one on my beater bike, but otherwise -- I've decided not to care about saddles. I want cheap and plastic. And it's liberating. The saddles on the Legolas and the White Elephant are both XLC -- which is the cheap knock-off Seattle Bike Supply house brand. I dig them.

I just cleaned my workbench about 2 weeks ago. I cannot keep it managed for the life of me. I may change my saddle, tool bag, bike-cleaning ways, and pedals, but I can't seem to get the trashed bench thing changed.

Glen built an XO-1

A couple months ago, I noticed this frame sitting in Glen's shop. I mentioned it on the Elephant blog here. It's beautifully done -- fillet brazed with a standard diameter top tube, True Temper front triangle. Glen built it because a customer of his gave him a Ritchey Logic fork from the 90's and he wanted a bike for those famous forks.

Most of Glen's bikes are TIG'd. Sometimes he'll fillet braze a bottom bracket. The whole front triangle on this one is fillet-brazed. And it's pretty exceptional. It's a skill/art that takes time even when you know what you are doing.

Anyway I didn't think about the bike again until I went to his shop the other night and saw the bike back from the powder coater. The color is really mellow blue in a cool matte finish. I think the low-key, matte color makes the contours around the welds look even more remarkable.

So, this morning, I go to his shop and he's got it all built up and rad looking with drop bars. I'm already a sucker for 26" wheels, but the drop bars make it awesomer yet. He says he's not sure what to do with it. He says something like, "it's basically a road a bike with 26" wheels," and how that's not very interesting to people.

So there's that. If I were still a highroller, I would've bought it on the spot. This is my perfect bike. This whole "road bike with 26" wheels" thing is what got me obsessed about cycling as an adult -- about 10 years ago...

I pin him down on the geometry, which he has in BikeCad.

Sure enough, Glen has pretty much built a 1993 Bridgestone XO-1, but awesomer in exactly the right spots, with a shorter rear-triangle and a lower bottom bracket.

Dig it:

	Elephant	93 X0-1
ST/HT angle	73/72	73/73
ST length	54	55
TT length	56	56.5
Stand over	800	797
Chainstay	410	425
Drop	50	45

And he's put super components on it: White hubs, Sun rims. Specialized cranks --pretty sure these were the cold forged ones made by Sugino back in the day. LX canti brakes -- the super sweet mid-profile ones.

He'll probably ride it around the block or on a ride or two, but if you are interested or if you know anyone that loves this style of bike: it's for sale. Contact me if you are interested. (SOLD).

Target bikes

Eleven years ago I bought a car seat at Target for my soon-to-emerge daughter. I'm pretty sure that was the last time I was at Target. I was just at Target a couple days ago because that daughter emerged and after 10 years of living decided that Target is where she wanted to go on her birthday to purchase Barbie products.  I'm pretty sure I'll be ok with not going back for another eleven years. And I'm pretty sure I don't want to get into the details around my general take on Target and Barbie here.

Anyway. Check out the bikes that have popped up at Target. I must be an optimist, because this all gives me hope.

 First off, we have the Target fixed gear, called... wait for it... "Fix-d"

There's a lot to dislike about this bike, but there's stuff to like too. White bikes are cool. Always. It's been empirically proven. That's not an opinion; it's a fact. So there's that. Unfortunately, lime green is always an awful choice in every single case. That's also a fact.

Chubby tires are a good thing. It's hard to dis those. And there's still room for fenders there.

That front brake is as awful as it looks. No need to click for big: it's a stamped single pivot side pull steel piece of shit. The back brake looks the same.

This bike ships with a flip-flop hub and it's out the door in fixed mode. Looks like about a 46x20-- it's a pretty big cog back there.. Not too bad a gear.  And look: a chain guard. But -- it doesn't have toe straps. I'm wondering how this got by the lawyers. They're shipping a fixed gear to Joe Public's kid with  platform pedals. That could get ugly on Christmas morning when Little Joe, living at the top of a big hill, hops on his new bike and attempts to coast down.

But it's white, so that goes a long way and probably will keep the lawsuits reasonable.

This is a "Schwinn." I dig it. And you know what, I think old Ignaz would dig it too, cause this single speed, coaster-braked, 559 fatty with steel everything will out live us all. And that's what Ignaz was all about. Aside from the f'ugly unicrown fork, this bike works nicely. For $130 out the door, I'd be down for that... if I needed a campus bike. And the silly paint scheme is cool in a dorky way that I find appealing.

Note the cardboard placard in the spokes: "26 inch good for height 5' 2" and above." guess what the 700c bikes say? "28 inch good for height 5' 2" and above."

And the 29'er mountain bikes? "29 inch good for height 5' 2" and above."

It's the Target fit kit.

But this bike takes the prize. It nearly works perfectly. The paint job -- who can argue with that? No one, that's who. It's just too damn awesome. What I wouldn't do to get my mitts on those fenders. I wouldn't kill anyone, but I might rough someone up a bit...

Anyway: one piece crank, chain guard, double kickstand, bitchin (and I mean that) basket with ribbon, v-brakes against powdered red rims.

But.

There are three things that sink this bike. Well four, cause it's too expensive): 1) the powder rims should be machined on the side walls so it would actually stop; 2) it's got a cheesy 3-speed internal hub - just go single and drop the price by $100 (it's $400) -- plus you could make it coaster brake and take another $40 or so off; 3) that damn lime green again. It just doesn't work.

Otherwise, what's not to like. Even those forks. God that paint/decal job is so rad. And the swoopy curvey step-through frame is just such a lovely shape to me.

Past bikes: Bike #5

I just have to figure out a way to live with the fact that I am not going to spend a bunch of time digging for old bike pictures. Which sucks in a way. Because I know I have pictures of Bikes #4 and #5 somewhere. But freg it.

Bike #5 I bought in my senior year of high school. I got it from Two-Wheel Transit back when it was up on 29th Ave (next to where Miller's Hardware is now). I'd like to think I bought it from Paul Main, but I don't know that for sure. But I'm going with it.

It was a Giant ATX 760. Yellow (second only to white as the perfect mountain bike color). Shimano STX 7 speed.  I think it was about $500. Which was big money. By this time, I was working at Patsy Clark's restaurant and making big money... about $4/hour? Five-hunred bucks is a lot of prep-cooking, salad-making, and Sunday-brunching.

My buddies dropped me off at the bike shop to pick up the bike. They were driving down 29th while I attempted to keep up with them. I don't remember exactly what the hey I was doing, but I'm pretty sure I tried to bunny hop the median in front of (what is now) 5 guys burger place. I totally shit the bed and flopped over my bars. I don't remember much, except that as I opened my eyes, the back wheel of my buddy's car was rolling by about 4 inches from my face.

A buddy at school (Lucus) had also just gotten a mountain bike. We were both taking PE as seniors because we didn't take it when we were supposed to when we were sophomores. I think that was slightly demoralizing. We started skipping PE on a regular basis and riding the river trail instead. Back then, the river trail cut up into a cement factory, then dropped down a wonderful old bit of lush double-track to where the mega-church housing development is today. By the end of the year, we were both looking at failing grades in PE, which would've blocked our graduation. We fessed up to our PE teacher that we were skipping to ride, so it should count. He sort of bought it. He said if we could run for two hours straight in the gym, he'd pass us. Running sucks. But we both passed.

I ended up taking that bike to Germany. I went there to live with my sister in Bavaria during my first year of college. College had turned out to be kind of a bummer. I couldn't find a lot of "mountain biking" per se in the general area, but I enjoyed tooling around the country side and visiting other little villages. This was especially fruitful in the summer months, when just about every little village I rode through had some kind of beer-related festival happening. The area we were in was around Nuremburg, which, aside from beer, is also known for it's super amazing bad-ass bratwursts, unlike ANY bratwursts I've ever found here. What a great country.

I sold the ATX 760 to an American Army dude for about what I paid for it. I needed the money for a plane ticket home.

Past bikes: #2

I don't remember what happened to Bike #1, but by the time we moved to Spokane in 1979 it was gone.

My sister Betsy had a bike. I must have had something.  But I don't remember. I do remember  Bike #2 though. And how I got it.

My mom sent Betsy and me to the store to get something. When we got back, we walked in the door and right in the middle of the living room was Bike #2. My mom and step-dad were smiling ear-to-ear: "Isn't it great Johnny?! Don't you love it."

Of course I did. I was blown away. It had mag wheels. It was red and yellow for god's sake. What was not to love?

And of course I wasn't paying attention to Betsy, who, apparently was standing there sort of quiet and glum. My parents were definitely paying attention to Betsy, because they were saying, "Isn't it great Bets? We sold your bike to buy Johnny a new one. Isn't that something?"

I still wasn't paying attention to Betsy. But to hear my parents tell it, she was welling up at this point: tears and such.

Me, Ryan. I was awesome.

Our house was built in 1907, so stuff was always in disrepair. As usual, the toilet was "running." My step-dad, Marty said to Bets, "That damn toilet. Betsy, will you go tickle the toilet -- it's running again."

Betsy ran out of the room in a silent, about-to-burst, fist-clenched rage.

I finally noticed Betsy when I heard a scream out of the bathroom.

My parents had bought her a bonafide 10-speed bike and had it set up in the bathroom. It was a step-through lugged Nishiki with straight-gauge 4130. I know that because I've seen a million of them since.

Nice. And true to my mother's game, well-played as always. It wasn't enough to buy new bikes for the kids. There had to be twist. A bit of fun to be had.

I ripped it up on Bike #2. I was no Tom Canning, who was our local crazy kid who jumped off anything. But I learned how to bunny-hop, kickout, and take minor jumps on Bike #2. It was pretty awesome to me. Though by BMX standards it was lacking in the singularly rad feature of not having a freewheel. Coaster brakes (or any brake for that matter) were for babies.

My best accident was when I did the board-on-the-block jump. I was on my buddy's wheel as he launched off the jump and the board jiggled a bit. As my front wheel cleared the end of the board, I watched for one split second as the board jiggled off the brick and my rear wheel hit the cinder block, pitching me over the bars and onto my face for that sweet nose impact taste once again.

I remember thinking that this was it for me. I limped home to die and as my mom cleaned me up, she found a small twig sticking out of a wound in my belly. She pulled it out and white pus-funked blood came with it. That was pretty cool. But I was sore for a few days.

Elephant v2

Full disclosure: I'm a shill for Elephant. While I didn't pay for the labor on this bike, I did pay for the tubeset. I provide labor to Elephant Bikes in trade for bikey stuff.

Elephant v2 is finally done. This is the bike Glen wanted to build for me almost as soon as he was done with v1:

• It uses the tubeset that he originally argued for (OX Platinum OS 747).
• Head angle is increased from 72 to 73 degrees
• More room for fatter tires. V1 *just* fit Quasimotos. This one fits Quai's just right.
• A bit taller seat tube.
• Shorter chainstays/more compact rear triangle.
• Better color -- Signal violet.

After riding the Legolas with similar tubeset and in anticipation of the summer camping/Nat'l Forest season, I finally got in his queue in December.

Nearly all parts are from the v1 build.

I dig it. I've only ridden it about 20 miles so far, and it's great.

Pictures below provide a few more details.

Kore canti brakes. Jury is still out on these. I think there are two kinds of canti-brake people in this world: 1) those how like stiff, quick pull canti's, where the pad instantly engages and then the rest of the lever-pull is a squeeze that provides just an incremental force, and 2) those who prefer squishy brakes that apply constantly increasing pressure nearly all the way down to the end of the squeeze. That's me. And these brakes are of type 1. I've been digging the Shimano 550 and the CX-70 lately. I suspect the CX-70's will eventually find their way onto this bike.
Fenders are VO 58mm. 

White Hetres. That's the rack I made at Pat's last year. Dig it. I kind of miss the clear-coat, but I also don't care that much. 

That's a good clearance shot. Cranks are the homely SR's that shipped on the Trek 520's back in the 80's. The crank is 86 BCD, which allows the super-useful 46/30 combo. But 86 BCD chainrings are long dead. I've got about a decades worth or so. Then I have another solution in the pipeline... assuming of course I need to have a solution. Lots can happen in 10 years. Also, dig that crank/chain-stay clearance. Lovely.

Hard to see -- but you can see the barrel braze-on pointing to the tire... where a fender should be attached. I had Honjos when I built this rack. Honjos extend way out there in a great way.  I'll probably end up ordering another set of VO to put the rear fender on here and tie it in properly. Right now it's ziptied.
Big shifting change from v1: Campy 10spd brifters against a shimano 8 speed. Works like a charm. Best of all worlds for me: cheap chain/cassette replacement, nice shifting. DT shifters have been removed from all bikes, though I will carry a friction DT in the toolkit on this bike for long Nat'l Forest junkets.

I like this touch. The fender tab is right under the bolt that attaches the rack through the crown.The top one holds the bottom one in place.

The violet tape on the bars is electrical tape that's been bouncing around Glen's shop for a while. As soon as I saw that color a about a year ago, I was hooked. The bike color matches it just about perfectly.  Based on few comments already, I've noticed that there are some distinct gender associations with this color.

V1 had internal wiring, which I generally found too fussy. This one has small clips and I'm just going with a blinky on the seatpost instead of a wired rear LED.

Maybe someday, if this wheel dies, I'll go with a Schmidt hub. They're so sweet.

High-value all-rounder sorta CX tires

Since my high-zooters finally blew up, I've been riding the WTB Interwolf 700-38 tires on my CX/Trails/commuter bike.

My buddy Alex gave me these tires a couple years ago. As I am wont to do, I favored the fancies and disregarded these lowly workhorses. Although, thinking on it, I did use these on a couple-day CDA forest exploration with no complaints. But other than that, these tires sat in the corner of the garage for over a year.

I really like them. For our non-muddy, slightly sandy, sometimes rooty and sharp-rocky trails, these tires really put out. I've had a handful of flats on them, but no pinch flats, which is pretty much unheard of for me when I trail ride on CX-type bikes, where my poor line-picking puts me in pinch flat land with regularity.

I run them both at 60 psi happily. Sometimes when I am doing all trails I'll squirt a bit of air out on the front to put me in the 50 psi neighborhood.

The knobbie profile is kind of perfect. It's grabby on the corners, which is what you want for banking in the thin-layer-of-sandy-over-hard-dirt of the HD trails. The same grabby corner knobbies slow me down a tad when cornering on pavement -- especially wet pavement.

And the center of the tire is flattish knobbies, which bite well at 60 psi on dirt and seem pretty benign on pavement. They roll surprisingly well on pavement. I commute on them all the time.

Kind of perfect.

December in Spokane.
Digging it.

These are not supple fancy squishy love bomb tires, but they're not awful either: a happy compromise for sure.

Come summer, I'll be back on my fancy white Grifo's, but for until then, I'm digging these.

Of course, like most rad bike things that I take a liking to, these tires appear to be no longer made, though still available until the stock runs out.

Legolas - unoffically

-- White tires are faster. It's a fact. And they improve the likelihood of planing.
-- I've got a lot to say about this bike. It's from Rory. It's front-end is different than most of my bikes. It's got super fancy campy shifting (10 speed 8 speed hack works perfectly). It replaces my RBT. It's for cross and commuting and trail riding. I can only do one of those right now. It's fancy.
-- oh yeah: And I wish i could take the trails home today on this bike.

space

Cycling in Spokane 2010

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.

 

Good riding in 2011. Thanks for reading!

Rockin the Vitus

Glen, Nate, Tom and I took a ride today. One of my favorite loops: Joe's Loop. It was not an ideal time of year to take this ride. We hit some huge pond/puddles, mud, and ice. Also, not ideal for the Vitus maiden voyage.

But guess what? The Vitus ruled. The tiny slick sew-ups did not rule in the soft mud, but the bike was a pleasure to ride. What a cool bike.

I had some surprises today:

1) The bike was not whippy at all. In fact, I don't think it flexed as much as my 747. Surprising. right?

2) Narrow tires are not always bad. I've ridden 25mm rock hard tires before and it's not fun. These sew-ups were still too narrow/hard for my liking, but they were heads and tails more comfy than the few awful 25's I've ridden before. Glen is digging through his stash to see if he can locate some 28mm-ish tires.

3) Giant chain rings, while really hard to push, do make sense when you really want to hammer. And you can't "hammer" on a bike with 46 tooth big ring like you can on a 53.

4) Even for a galoot like me, a light-ass bike does matter. Maybe it's all in the head, but this bike is just so easy to ride fast.

5) Aluminum frames don't all suck. Which leads me to the bigger surprise.

The world of bikes is not as black and white as I regularly attempt to enforce on my thinking. I f'ing love riding bikes. Pretty much all bikes. Some I love riding way more than others, but all bikes have something to offer. And some even have stuff to teach me, if I'm open to it.

I don't know what the deal is with this day and age, but it's so easy to get polarized about EVERYTHING in today's hyper-ass world. I want the bikes, the riding, and the bike people I hang with to be free of that. I think my New Year's resolution is to have less opinions about bikes. Force a clean slate. Everything bike-related doesn't have to fall into either a good bucket or a crappy bucket.

Riding -- and really genuinely loving -- the Vitus today has illustrated all of this stuff to me.

More Trail Riding

Since building up the Rawland, I've been spending more time riding trails than I normally do. Mr. Tobin recommended that I check out the trails between Indian Canyon and Rimrock. So Friday, I did.

It was nice to take a solo ride. I didn't go far, maybe 30 miles or so, but it was good clear my head after sort of a frustrating week.

The area I started my ride in is called Palisades Park. I thought Palisades Park was just the area behind Rimrock, but it's not. There's a whole section of park and trails south of where Greenwood climbs up to Rimrock.

One warning Ben gave me before I explored this park was to watch out for the sections of trail under the tree canopies. He mentioned something about thorny trees. That was the understatement of the year. Pushing my bike up a steep rocky climb I ended up with a bunch of chunks of branches stuck in my front tire. Turns out each one was attached with a thorn. All up: 6 punctures in the front wheel. Zero in the rear wheel.

I patched a couple holes on the trail. As I waited for the second patch to dry, I inspected the inside of the tire and found 4 more thorns stuck in the tire. So, instead of attempting to patch all 6 punctures on the trail, I spent my time making sure all the thorns were out of the tire and swapped in a new tube. That way, if I got another flat, I'd at least have some patches left.

After patching, I decided to go out to Riverside State Park, but I wanted to take dirt/trails that I'd never ridden before. My first detour was behind this abandoned rail bridge off Houston Road. I've noticed this little path many times, but I've never taken it. It's an old, steep, concrete driveway or perhaps a road. There also appears to have been a sidewalk at some point along the path. Unfortunately the path just loops around and pops out up higher on Houston, but it's a neat little bit of history.

I think my favorite kind of riding is when I find overgrown and abandoned roads.

I jumped on the Centennial Trail and went past the Military Cemetery -- down the steep hill. I climbed the big apple tree at the bottom, stuffed my pack with apples, then rode back up the other side of the hill. From here, I was temped to take the trail that follows the river, but it's verboten. The "no bikes" sign has been removed by vandals. I used to take that trial all the time when I was in high school. It's a great trail and I'd like to take it again.

Instead, I took the road just north of the trail. This was the new-to-me route. I noodled around the trails and old roads and ended up popping out across the river from the Riverside State Park campground.

From RSP, I came back on Aubrey White Parkway for a couple miles. At the sewer treatment plant, I tried one of the trails that goes up the hill to Northwest Blvd. That was another new-to-me path. Most of the climb is gradual and pretty easy. Right at the end the dirt gets deep and the path gets steep.

I rode back into town across the north side and popped out at Natural Start Bakery for lunch. From there, I tooled around the East Sprague area. While attempting to pick my way down a steep path by Browns Building Supply, I crashed -- went sort of over my bars and kind of ran/stumbled/tripped/somersaulted to a stop.

With a half hour to wait for Liza to get off work, I stopped at Madelines and had a cup of tea. Where I ran into Richard and Klay. If I stop at Madelines on a Friday. I almost always run into Richard and Klay. It's just one of those things.

This picture only shows Richard. Klay is there too, but she's wearing her invisible cloak. I'm a ghost in the reflection.

Reminder

FBC rides Monday.

The Pain of Selling A Beloved Bike

Like anyone with an addiction, letting your guard down for a bit and not being steadfast in your resolve leads to a relapse.

I've got too many bikes again. I need to sell some stuff off.

I hate selling bikes. I hate selling bikes because I always want more than the market says they're worth. Most bikes simply do not deprecate in the seller's favor. And I get a silly emotional attachment to my bikes too. So that doesn't help.

Take the turd for example. I'm selling the turd. With the new snow bike, the turd lost its last opportunity to shine. I love this bike and I love riding it, but it's redundant.

Anyway, here's the list of stuff that is on the bike and the retail cost I paid for it:

• Frameset: Garage sale score - $5


• Albatross bars/dirt drop stem/cork grips: Riv - $89


• Nitto front rack: Riv - $135


• giant basket: free


• Rear wheel: peter white built mavic 520, surley flip flop hub, 14/15 spokes: $210


• Front wheel: cr-18 rim, shimano DH-3N70 hub, 14 gauge spokes: $135


• Surly cog (20t, 3/32): $20


• Tires: Maxxis Holy Rollers - huge crazy tires. Craigslist: $20


• Little brass bell: Riv - $8+


• Front light: DLumotec Oval N Plus - $80


• Rear light: DT Top light: $70


• Death pedals. I can't remember the manufacturer, but these have spikes on them and rip up everything they touch: your shins, your calves, the soles of your shoes. $40


• Saddle, post, cranks, chain, cranks, chainring, rear rack, cages, front U-brake, brake levers, bottom bracket: from parts bin -- say, $40.

Total cost of the turd: $852. You'd never guess that looking at. So, remove the fancy expensive, non-essential stuff: the front rack ($135), the lights ($150) and the front wheel ($135); that takes off $420, for a total of $432.

So for selling, put another front wheel on of decent quality (say, deore hub with Mavic rim, 14/15 spokes -- an $80 wheel), and the cost of the bike goes back up to $512. That's retail cost of new stuff.

Now the hard part: how do you figure wear/tear/depreciation? In terms of durability, the bike is just getting warmed up. The rear wheel has lived the majority of it's life without a brake on it. It was built by PJW, and it's a bombproof wheel. The frame, bars, all else is functionally as good as new. It's got scratches etc, but it's ready to roll for a long long time. I don't think folks would pay half of $512. I would try to sell it for $350. But will probably have to let it go for $300. That kills me.

That's why I'm much happier with the Loaner for Life scenario. The problem there, is that I'm getting to many loaners out there.

Any takers?

Anniversary

It's been a year since I started this blog. My first post on Nov 10th, 2006 is here. I've nothing deep and philosophical to say about this fact.

Check out the bike above. That bike belongs to my buddy Patrick. As far as I know, that is his first set of coroplast fenders. Nicely done. Great coverage.

You can tell a lot about a guy's patience threshold, general sense of aesthetics, and of course how he votes, by studying his coroplast fenders.

Richard Rush just sent an email asking for his campaign signs back. Sorry Richard. There are not many green/white campaign signs. I'll be hording mine for just the right bike. And I'll probably grab my neighbor's too.

The Oregon bike builders show was this weekend. My buddy Alex went. He's sure to post a blog on it. But I see he's uploaded his pics here.

click to go to James' site for more pics

Finally, in the "yet another person designing what they want and just getting it built themselves

department," here is James Black's "cargo truck" bike. It's got twenty inch wheels, removable/convertible racks. The idea is that you could have a child seat or a bigger rack with universal fittings that you can slide onto the main "mast." Dig the NuVinci hub. I like how small the bike is and I like his idea of providing two dropouts on the front fork to adjust trail for the load. According to this thread, he says that changing trail does not require a brake adjustment. Smart stuff.

The same fork concept was used on some random and rare GT bikes in the early 90's. It's a great idea. A friend of mine has one of these GT bikes. I think I want to get a hold of it so it doesn't disappear.

Finally a Real Start

That is a cell-phone photo that I hope will one day be historic. Even if it's just historic to me.


The photo shows a whiteboard that lives in the city council briefing room in the basement of the city hall. Written on that white board is a plan for a plan to develop a Master Bike Plan for the City of Spokane.


Since joining the Bicycle Advisory Board (BAB) about 9 months ago, when virtually the entire board was reset, we have made our priority 1 mission to develop a real Master Bike Plan.


Without such a plan any chance of getting funding from anyone, including our own capital projects folks in the city, is basically zero. When federal, state, or other folks with money give their money away for bike facilities, they want to see that the money goes into a community that supports the project. The most obvious way of illustrating that, is showing that the community has bicycle policy and regulation baked into the over all comprehensive plan.


Our comp plan has a lot of bike stuff in it. But there is no Master Bike Plan -- not to mention that there's not a real unified set of policy, nearly no regulation and certainly not a peep on funding. There is a bike map, which is often (irritatingly) referred to as "the bike plan." Aside from being outdated and clearly developed by non-cyclists, it's incredibly inadequate as a tool from which to develop real policy, codification, and regulation -- all elements which are required for any kind of significant funding.


To build an effective Bicycle Master Plan then, requires a lot of skin in the game from the City of Spokane. It requires time from planning and engineering. It requires review and buy in from the council and capital projects as it's developed. It requires citizen and cycling input. It must be shepherded through the political processes around planning, GMA conformity, and just general political goo. It's a document that must be done well and be driven, developed, and written by professionals -- not a bunch of volunteer cycling fanatics. We've been asking the city for some full-time heads to devote to the plan for months now.


On Friday, we had the acting head of planning, the head of long-term planning, engineering, and a really cool woman from capital projects (the money folks) sit down with some of the BAB folks and develop a strategy for developing a draft of the bike plan w/in a year. This is huge. This is huge because we had the right folks in the room, we have correct prioritization w/in each department to finish this project, and we have a commitment to finish the project from these departments, backed by the city.


The "plan" will include, at a minimum: policy, regulation, prioritized projects, and funding specifics.



These are still early days and surly there will be lots to learn and lots of hard work ahead, but for the first time since joining the BAB, I am really hopeful that we may see real stuff happen in the time I am actually a member of the BAB. Yay.


In other news.


Another bike accident in Cheney. Kid. No helmet. Airlifted out. Last word was that he was in critical condition.

Pedals 2 People had a super successful run at fixing up 85 bikes over the last two weeks. That means 85 people that were bikeless yesterday, now have a bike to ride. Blog post on it here.

NAHBS Report

I went down to the North American Handbuilt Bike Show in San Jose this weekend with my buddy Alex. All of the pictures I have here were taken by Alex. He's really good at taking bike shots. More of his pics of the NAHBS can be found on his Smugmug site.

Here's some stuff:

Crowned

It's back. Finally, and what took it so long? The bi-plane fork was all over the place on the 29er's down there. And rightfully so. It's such a cool design.

Pacenti is selling this beauty. Long Shen is making it. It's about 60mm wide -- which is great for big downhill mountain bikes, but I'm hoping he'll get some 50mm's in for the rest of us that just like fatties on our "road" bikes. I don't really think there's a huge benefit to the design -- some kind of built in "spring" is the claim, but it just looks cool. Sycip actually had a bike with an original Ritchey/Bridgestone bi-plane fork crown on it.

Deep V's and Track Bikes == Peas and Carrots

First off: there were a zillion track/fixed gear bikes. A lot of mongo 29ers too. Cool if you're into that, and I am kind of, but me thinks these groups are overly represented. That said, I'm into the bling that is Deep V rims on fixed/track bikes. I'm not a huge blinger, but going to this kind of show there is a ton of bling everywhere and you start thinking about your bikes as sort of an accessory to your whole image -- and the fact that you do portray and image. Like it or not. It's weird. But it can't be denied.

The Deep V's are super strong and actually make sense for "urban" riding. That's in "quotes" because it's a funny and overused and kind of markety word. But the point is that you want strong rims for bouncing around the city -- and of course you don't want to shy away from the occasional single-track or trail riding either. A little bling never killed anyone either, and the Deep V delivers. The bummer for me is that I had just ordered a Deep V before I went to this show and I got boring black or silver-- can't exactly recall. At the show, I saw white, pink, yellow, and gold. And red. Alex was the picture taker and I didn't bug him to take pics of the super bling deep V. There's always next year.

The City Bike: are we on the same page here?

Shimano has been doing a competition among bike builders/manufacturers to build the best the bike around it's commuter/city-bike gruppo, the Alfine (al-feen-ay). This is a polished up version of the Nexus dynamo hub and the Nexus 8-spd internal hub. The gruppo may include the shifters and lights.

This bike here is a "Bill Rider." He nailed the main stuff that matters: full fenders so you can ride on wet streets/rain and not get mucked up. Lights integrated into the rear stays. Nice. Sturdy racks. The rear rack is built with hefty tubing and will haul a good pile of crud. A nice rake to the front fork. The bag there is attached and stays attached to the front rack. It's main purpose in life is to carry a heavy lock. Good kickstand. Only thing missing there is a chain guard, and if you want to get super picky: a skirt guard.

Ok, the guy who won, did not only NOT have fenders, but he built a custom rack in such a way that you CAN'T add a rear fender. And there was no front rack. Huh? He said racks "mess with the lines of a bike." Second place, or was it third? Whatever: it had those funny little half-fenders and no racks; and the light was sort of tacked on at the end; pointing nearly into the wheel. Gimme a break! C'mon Shimano people: give the awards to the people that make a functional bike first.

Big Bikes that Haul Stuff

Lots of cool stuff going on here.

Sycip had the monster truck bike. This was optimized for motorcycle panniers made by Ortleib. In addition, this is the first bike I've seen that has built in provisions (as in brazed on bits) to support the stokemonkey. Looks like it would be fun to ride.

I think Fraser is going to be more well-known in this tiny niche of a niche market of big/long bikes. They are from San Diego, and I could definitely see the well-heeled 30-somethings riding down the beach path with this bike loaded up with kids and crud... check out the built-in foot rests. These are well-thought-out bikes.

Coolest Innovation

I got lucky a couple weeks ago when Hairy Gary pulled a 94 BCD NOS Ritchey crank from his stash and sold it to me. If he hadn't, there's no doubt in my mind I'd be shelling out $270 for these beauties.

This is the White Industries crank. Alex's notes on this picture say it all: "Outer ring is splined and available in many sizes. Inside ring uses any 5-bolt BCD. Great for compact doubles. $275, 108mm bottom bracket."

I love stuff like this. It is SO stinking simple. It's the kind of thing you look at and think, "damn, I could've thought of that."

Wrap Up

There was a huge collection of Bruce Gordon bikes. I think the earliest one was from 1974. The guy really is ahead of the curve. He was doing what we would call "29'ers" many years ago. It was also really fun to browse his 30 or so bikes and just look at component changes over the years. He's known for being kind of a grump. I told him I really enjoyed looking at his bikes and what a cool perspective it was to see them all together. He sort of grunted at me.

The builders at NAHBS represent such a tiny tiny fraction of the bike market in this country. Likely less than 1% would be my guess. And the majority of that is because "Seven" was there, so with out the representation of Seven, we're talking about an even tinyer minority of bikes. These guys that do this for a living do it because they love it. Maybe Richard Sachs makes a few bucks. Some day I buy a custom bike. If I do, I'll stay local and have Hairy Gary do it. Cause he's local, and he's good.

There was a rumor going around that NAHBS will be in Portland next year. That would be so perfect. We'll see. All in all, a fun show. If you're into bikes or just into seeing really well-made stuff made by real craftsmen, it's worth a trip.