Farewell trusty Trek

The 720 is moving to Seattle.

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Another porteur

I've had this Trek 720 for about 4 years. It's a super sweet frame. 1983 was a good year at Trek. A couple years ago, I put some high-rake forks (painted by buddy Patrick) on it and Alex made me the sweet rack. Last year, I bought the Swift Industries bag. Sweet bag. Pretty much rain-proof. And egg-proof too.

Most of it's life with me it's been built up as a fixed gear. In the last couple years I really only get into the fixed gear in the winter when I need a studded bike for ice. Now that winter is over I decided to porteur-ize the bike for tooling around town.


It's got the Nexus 8-speed hub, Albatross bars, and a low stem with lots of reach to push the bars out. It's pretty comfy. I've really been into platform pedals, tennis shoes, jeans, and headphones lately. Maybe it's just a phase, but I dig it. I rode Liza's hacked Fuji this week too.

When you set up a bike with swept-back bars and platform pedals and a big-ass turdy IG hub, it's hard not to chill out and enjoy being on a bike in a way that feels like only a bike can make you feel: I'm in no hurry when I'm rolling like this. And with the spring and the sun coming on, and some good music, I end up taking the long way home. Slowly.


I had a single speed mountain bike for a few days before the chain exploded. It's getting track dropouts at the moment (literally, I think there is a very good chance that Glen is brazing the new dropouts on that bike as I type this). That bike will be a platform pedaled beauty too -- for trail riding and chilled day time cruising. Pics to come.

Selling Patrick's stuff

Patrick, of Scoop fame, is a buddy of mine. He's selling two interesting cycling items. I told him I'd post them here because he's a buddy, but also, because this frame should be put to good use.

It's a 1983 Trek 520 (56cm). The 1983 version of this popular model was special. Unlike the 520's that came after it, the 1983 520 used caliper brakes (not canti's) and it was a low-trail bike. In fact, the geometry is pretty close to Rene Herse randoneering bikes from the 50's (parallel 73 HT/ST; 55mm offset; "square" HT/ST length. It's also got pretty nice tubing: Reynolds 501 (not 531, thanks SteveP); 9-6-9 butted profile on the main triangle.

I had this same frame and hacked it into a canti-wearing, 650B-shod porteur. A worthy project. But ultimately, I discovered that the porteur configuration wasn't for me. I ended up trading the frame (in part) for my new cycle truck.

Anyway, Patrick is selling this frame. It's $200 and a bargain considering you'll not find anything approaching the quality of a USA-made, silver-brazed lugged frame (with interesting geometry) like this in production today... for anything close to $200. But I'm a nut for these kinds of frames and I probably wouldn't sell it because I'd hate to have someone lowball me. It would be hanging in my basement, or loaned out. So buy this frame, don't haggle, and enjoy it.

Apparently, Patrick will ship this frame. That's another thing I wouldn't do. For a couple reasons, but I'm droning on long enough here, so I'll spare you the rationalization. By the way: the headset is shot.

Item #2: Ye old Xtree.

$300. That's a $150 (+shipping) savings on this one for local buyers. For out-of-towners: No shipping on this one. Includes everything that Xtracycle includes except the long cable and cable housing for the rear derailleur.

Interested in either of these gems? Email Patrick: psully82 AT hotmail DOT com.

More hauling

This bike has been seeing more and more riding lately. I never really look forward to riding it, but when I can haul stuff on it, I appreciate it. 

I recently tightened up the leather on the saddle, which helped a lot; it's way more comfortable. The leather was sagging onto the saddle frame. I've had the Brooks spanner wrench since I bought my first Brooks about 6 years ago, but I've never used it. I went through my saddles and found 2 that benefited from a wee bit of tightening. I may even put some Proofide on them too.

I'm going to swap the bars yet again. These bars are just too flat-ish and my wrists don't like to rotate that much. Since the bike is short-haul only, I'll give moustache bars a try again. I like moustache bars for tooling around and off-roading, but anything over 20 miles or so doesn't work for me. I'll set them up tall. I'll shift the 8-speed Nexus with the Jtek bar-end shifter. 

I put the Tubus Fly rack on this bike a few days ago when I had to haul some crap up to the P2P garage. I love the Tubus Fly. It's the best production rear rack ever. Ever. It's light; it's strong; it's elegant. 

The 720 does well with the load as pictured. I put a different fork on it to optimize for loading on the front rack. It's the best of both worlds: you get the nice long chain stays and wheel base for rear loading and a polite front end that stabilizes with a load over the front wheel. 

Anyway. All that crud in the bags and bucket is going to Plum Tree School tomorrow morning for the Bike-to-Work "Energizer station." If you're commuting through the south hill tomorrow, stop by 20th and Sherman between 7am-9am and get some Apple Charlotte hot coffee and Liza's home made treats. She was a baking fool over the last few days: there are about 1/2 dozen different baked goodies to choose from. And if you have ANY food allergy/preference, I bet there's a treat here you can eat. Liza is so inclusive.

Reworking the Trek 520

About a year or so ago, I had some work done on a 1983 Trek 520. It's been a good tourer and fun townie bike, but since building up the RB-T, it's a bit redundant, and I like the RB-T as a front-loader, fast, urban, trails, S24o'er, do-everything bike.

I've been wanting to build up a more traditional porteur for a while. The plan with this bike is to build a trailer for it too so I can haul bikes and crud for P2P. It will also haul a kayak for local jaunts to water fun time.

It's got a SRAM S7 internal hub. I've built up bikes around a Sturmey Archer 3sp and a Nexus 8 speed hub, and the SRAM is the least fussiest of all as far as setup, install, and tuning is concerned. Super simple.

In addition to the canti brakes, the rear hub has a drum brake. The brake is actuated with a down tube shifter. The idea is for long descents when hauling a heavy load -- I can keep the speed manageable without over-heating my rims.

The fancy inverse brake levers are for wank-points. The front rack, of course, is from Alex.

The bars are albatross and they're too high. I may have to destroy one of the cork grips and put a shorter stem on there. That's the dirt drop that was on the bars when I yanked it off the turd. I regret not fussing with that more as I built it up. Maybe I'll get some real porteur bars for it too some day.

It's a pleasure to ride. The CdV tires are like riding on pillows. Loads are easy in the front.

Liza says there's too much crap on it.

Thursday Report

I'm off work for the next couple weeks. Maddie is in school this week. I spent my second day in a row tooling around town. And my second day in a row going to visit Hairy Gary. I picked up some cranks from him yesterday and it turns out he had finished straightening some Atlantis forks that I had left there about a year ago. AND... he is nearly done with a rack that is also of the same vintage. It's a big hunk of machined aluminum. Weird. But I'm game for whatever he cooks up.

He said he'd spend a couple days finishing my rack. On the ride back from his house I figured I should just bring my 720 there with my new Kogswell fork and have him fix it all up with the new rack. So, I stripped most the crud off the 720 last night, loaded it up on the 520, and rode it out there today with my new forks.

Gary has this pink beauty hanging in his living room.

It's a woman's super light sport tourer; about 54 cm. It's steel and it's about 3.5 lbs. With fork. Freaky light. It would fit Liza nicely. He said he'd sell it for $2200, which is a great price if that's your deal. It's a neat paint job; flowery/butterfliey but mellow; not crazy.

The ride to Gary's is sucky, but I kind of like it. It's sucky in that you pretty much have to go out Broadway in the Helena/Freya area, which just isn't pleasant. But I like it out there because there's always lots of cool industrial type stuff to look at and some rough roads and a bit of dirt. There are also little homes tucked away in their too. It is a neighborhood. My route always includes the shortcut through Playfair, which -- by the way -- is on the short list as a place for a new prison. Nice. Just what that neighborhood needs. Lame.

On the way back, I saw this bike hanging on some one's porch:

Dig the chian ring and the crazy offset on the fork.

This would be a damn fun bike to ride. It's a 3-speed; it's nice and big. Not sure what size tires those are. 597's? Man, I'd love to ride that sucker. Check out the clearance. This would be a flippin sweet city bike for tooling around.

As I was on this guy's lawn taking pictures, he pulled up and told me that he got it at a garage sale and that he doesn't ride it. And that it looks a lot better when it's dark. Indeed.

Westside Wrap Up

I'm pretty sure that this rack/child configuration is not officially supported by Alex, but it does work for short hotel hallway rides.

We spent the last few days in the Seattle area. Some fun/family stuff and some work stuff.

I didn't ride much. But I did get my rack. And we saw a few interesting bike things.



Check out the tandem here. If you look closely you'll see a dog in the back basket too. These two were happily chatting as they cruised down the main drag in Ellensburg.


I also saw this interesting twist on a wheel lock. I've seen these on cars before, but this is the first bicycle wheel lock I've seen.

When I got home today, I had a bunch of work stuff to do, then I put the fender and light and low-rider rack back on my 520 and took a quick spin.

Man I love this rack. It just completes this bike. It just occurred to me tonight that with this setup, I can easily pile my winter sleeping bag (which is huge) on the front rack along with my hammock and pad. Then the food/clothes/etc can go in the small Ortliebs on the front low-rider. This is a perfect set up for S24O's this time of year.

This bike is getting so close. I still need to get a new headset for it. In fact, if I can find a shop that can do this while I wait, I may try to get it done this Friday.


And I'm not insanely crazy about the crankset (Sugino XD2) and the tires I'm running (Maxy Fasty and Nifty Swifty).

When I kill this chain I'll probably swap out the drive train:
-- I have a slightly used XT rear derailleur to replace the Deore
-- I have a line on a different crank set for it (Ritchey triple)
-- Shorter bottom bracket
-- New rear cog.


As for the tires, the ones I have on there are ok, but I do prefer just a bit of tread and it would be nice if the side walls were a tad cushier. I'm holding out for Jan at BQ to source something like the Grand Bois.


As for trying out the rack. One of my first loads will be hauling posters all over town for the P2P/Scoop "Viewed By Bike" photo contest and show. How's that for a shameless plug?

Alex's Kogswell P/R

This is Alex's Kogswell P/R prototype. I was never crazy about this bike. But now, with the front rack on there, and my having ridden it a few times over a variety of surfaces, I like it. This bike is modeled on a Rene Herse (not, Singer -- thanks Alex) bike from the 50's. It's got a similar geometry to the 1983 Trek, which I think, was modeled on the same Herse bike. But that's just conjecture.

The rack is just super handy. This bike has a front-end geometry that is optimized for loads on the front rack -- it's got low trail. I believe the trail on this bike is 40mm. The low trail is really the defining characteristic of this bike. When I borrow this bike, I commute around the Redmond/Bellevue area. I put my messenger bag (containing a laptop and other small stuff -- 15 lbs?) on the rack and secure the bag with a bungee net. It's nice to carry a load up front, where you can see it, where it's accessible, and where -- on a properly designed bike -- the load doesn't screw the handling, but instead, seems to improve it.

A previous version of this post claimed that Alex built the rack. Actually: Alex and Alistair Spence designed this rack, which fits over a Nitto mini front rack. Alistair built it. Alex has since built a couple/few racks and plans to build more.

I've got a rack in his queue; he's going to build me one that is the same platform-size as the rack in the picture, but it will connect to the mid-fork braze-ons. It'll go on my Trek, which essentially the same bike as the P/R, but with standard gauge/diameter tubing instead of oversized.

Bike Tour to St. Helens

I just got back this morning from a great bike tour of the St. Helens back roads. With the exception of the first day of this trip, which was a 30 mile escape out of the suburban community of Battleground, WA, every single day was exceptional. I really can't do the trip justice in a measly blog post... but I'll give it a shot and put lots of pics in here.

I went with Alex Wetmore and Larry Laveen, two seasoned tourers who are about the best bike tourers a semi-rookie tourer like me could hope to ride with. These guys have been touring together for a decade and are just reliable, decent, smart, strong guys. Touring with them is really a great treat and I've been fortunate to be able to join them this year and last.

If we had a goal for this year's journey, it was to get out of civilization and deep into the back woods and see how we fared. That's what we did. We spent a lot of our time climbing: long gentle grades of the foothills; steep, rocky logging roads; and just long gravel ascents.

Payoff for these climbs came in a variety of currencies: short washed out fire roads; shady, one-lane swoopy descents with super smooth asphalt; a 20 mile-long blast off a mountain and into a valley. All and all, the actual riding was just superb: every surface you can imagine; lots of variety; incredible views; great weather.

Our final day of riding was the epic day: 3200 feet of climbing over 20 miles, about 13 of which were loose, steep, switch-back rocky logging roads -- to the top of an amazing ridge where we could see everything in every direction on a perfectly still, blazing hot, blue-sky day. Amazing and inspiring. It's difficult to recall a more satisfying day of cycling, and impossible for me to put into words the satisfaction and joy I felt after reaching the top of that mountain.

We saw Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt St Helens.

Of our six days out, 3 nights were spent miles away from the nearest services. We traversed one washed out road by portaging our crap across the divide. We only had two flats, there were no other mechanical errors. For about 3 hours one morning I was too cold and woke up with numb toes; otherwise, I was comfortable sleeping.

We met a lone girl walking the Pacific Crest Trail: the only vistor we had one night in an out of the way little campsite where we were the only campers.

We ate tons of food and drank at least a gallon of water each a day. All day I was drenched with sweat and it was wonderful. I waded and washed in an ice-cold mountain stream.

It was such a great ride, and a great reminder of why I love bicycles so much. I love getting around town and getting things done on a bicycle, but there is no other feeling like the one I had after coming home after pedaling around the back roads for many days -- propelled by my own power, enjoying the sights and amazing aromas of the unspoiled forest.

Alex is going to do a full-on ride report on the tour on his site. His teaser is here.

My pics are here.

OTM April: Carrying Stuff

The April issue of Out There Monthly marks my entry into the world of (non-geeky) print publications. I'll be writing a monthly column called "Everyday Cyclist." My first article was about how to carry a couple bags of groceries on your bike. It's pretty hard to give the topic complete treatment in under 900 words. Luckily, there's no limit on this blog; I can be as verbose as I want. Lucky you.

There are a couple additions I wanted to make to the article here. I want to get pictures up of all the options mentioned in the article and I want to mention a couple other cheap options that I didn't have room for .

But first, if you're interested in carrying loads and city bikes, you should know about Bicycle Quarterly, which just published a whole issue dedicated to city bikes. Specifically, in the Spring issue, they review the Breezer Uptown 8, the Jamis Commuter, and the ANT "Basket Bike." The issue also includes an article by Liza where she writes about her favorite bike, which is a city bike we built up from a garage sale mixte. In my opinion, Bicycle Quarterly is far and away the best cycling periodical in print today. The quality of writing and overall content is just superb. If you only subscribe to one bike-related magazine, it should be Bicycle Quarterly. I have no financial tie or interest in the magazine; I just would love to see its readership grow.

Anyway, here are pictures of each rack solution mentioned in the Out There Monthly article.

Milk crate

Wald basket

Bucket panniers

Fancy panniers

As I mentioned in the article, there are tons of solutions for carrying groceries and loads on bicycles. But a couple other easy and not too expensive solutions to consider are the front basket and the saddle bag.

Front baskets are nice because you can keep your eye on the load. A good front basket should be easy to pop off and take into the grocery store. Some bikes handle better than others with front baskets, but as an easy solution to carry smaller loads on most bikes, a front basket can be a great solution. Again, I have to go with the Wald here. Wald makes a nice basket that is easy to put on most bikes and has a super simple quick release mechanism built right into the handle. A net is essential for front baskets, as stuff tends to bounce around quite a bit. A net is nice too since it allows you to cram a bunch of stuff in the basket. Here's a not-so-great photo of a stuffed Wald basket.

Saddle bags are great too. A saddle bag is a bag that attaches to the saddle and hangs over the rear wheel. Rivendell Bicycle Works has been pushing saddle bags for years and was the company that introduced me to the practical goodness of the saddle bag. Most saddles made today do not have saddle bag loops, but some still do. You won't find much for saddle bags in any of the local bike shops. Online, Rivendell is a good source, as is Wallingford Bike Parts.

I like saddle bags because the weight is right under the seat. They're typically not waterproof, but since they're right under your butt and body, you block a lot of the rain. Plus, I like the way they look... distinctly not cool and not aero and not racey. Of course the milk crate has that going for it too and it's way cheaper.

Cranked

Well, today was a day of firsts. I busted a crank. A crank! And I had to call Liza for a ride -- I had a mechanical malfunction that I couldn't fix on the road. That was also a first.

I guess I'll need to start packing an extra crankset and chainring in my tool pouch if I want to be REALLY self-sufficient.

I got this crankset just over a year ago. I put it onto my old Trek a couple weeks ago. They are Sugino XD's. If you're keeping score.

As I walked the bike out of the trails to meet Liza, I tried to figure out how many miles this crankset has on it. It's hard to judge: I ride a bunch of bikes and I never track my miles. I'm not a super mileage person. I ride a lot, but not long miles on a regular basis. The fixed gear has certainly gotten the majority of my time, if not miles in the last year. And much of the riding is very hard. I'm heavy and I'm a grinder and I love racing around on the fixed on the high drive trails and any other single-track that looks interesting. My guess is that these cranks lasted somewhere between 1200 and 2000 miles. Not much.

This calamity befell me as I was mashing up the single track there kind of north of the doomsday hill bridge on the single track that follows the west side of the river -- going towards bowl and pitcher. Anyway, the chain popped off on a grind up a steep little climb. I walked to the top, put the chain back on, then started going down a bit of a hill and back pedaling. Then ca-chank! The crank is done. Sheered. Lame.

I may be ultimately to blame though. I had a bit of chicanery going on with my set up. To get a good chainline, I put spacers in between the crank spider arms and the chainring on the inside of the arms. I think this localized the stress on the spider arms more than they could handle. If the chainring had been seated up against the inside of the spider arms the load would be spread a bit more across the chainrings, bolts, and arms. That's another theory I came up with on that walk out of the trails.

We took a great walk/hike on the highdrive trails this morning. Damn, I love those trails.

Here's Liza: bikes locked up and all ready to roll. Maddie was already halfway down the trail at this point.

And there's Don and Maddie. Post-hike. Maddie ran the entire way while explaining/singing something important (and in great detail) that we didn't quite catch.

Rolling Along

This has been a good bike weekend:
1. Liza started working at Two Wheel Transit on Thursday. She's legit. She likes it so far. I think having a knowledgeable woman in a bike shop can only help sales. I guess we'll see. Maddie and I had a great time on Saturday while Liza was at work. We rode in circles most of the day in the Wilson playground or on our back patio.

2. I took a nice shake down ride on my new Trek with David on Friday. I wanted to get some trails/rough surfaces in. We took the Fish Lake Trail out to Cheney, had a cup of coffee and rode back on Curtis rode. That is still one of my favorite rides. The Trek is great. David asked me if I could really feel the difference in the low trail as I hoped I would, and I have to say I don't. It doesn't feel bad. It certainly doesn't feel like my Atlantis, which is super trail, but I can't detect the "low trailness" of the ride. I'm not disappointed, but I think I'm a bit surprised. I also think we just adapt to different nuances in bike handling pretty quickly and I don't have the experience across a wide range of bikes to feel such subtleties. It rides nicely and I am beginning to drink the 650B kool-aide: there really does seem to be a nice balance of cushy-fast there.

3. We had some friends over on Friday night who are really interested in building some tall bikes. We've got a good pile of steel frames that I wouldn't feel awful about cutting up and we have access to some torches and welders. We may just start hacking something together here. I sure would like to find some other like-minded freaks. We've got a group of four now.

4. My buddy Alex picked up our new-to-us tandem in Seattle. We'll be getting it in April. The tandem we have now is just too big -- for both Liza and Maddie. It could work, but the Bike Friday is a great little tandem and they are super reasonable when you buy them used. Out of the box, the bike is ready for Maddie; no fussing required. It's pretty nifty: it has a Sachs internally-geared 3 speed hub with a 7 speed cassette attached to it. So all the shifting is in the rear wheel and it has the same (or similar -- I don't know the exact range) as a 21 speed. It breaks down into two pieces so you can carry it in standard (no extra fee) airline luggage. Maddie and I looked at the pics of it this morning and we're both pretty psyched.

My Weak Contribution to People Who Want to Fix Thier Broken Brooks Saddle

That there is a picture of a Brooks b-17 saddle that is about to be man-handled by two hairy men for an hour. When it comes to re-railing, that B-17 is one tough customer.

I busted the rails on it last summer when I was riding around Vancouver Island. It's a bummer, because the saddle was only about 3 years old and just starting to break in. I ordered a replacement frame for it about 6 months ago and just got around to fixing it now. My plan was to take photos along the way as we fixed it. If you lurk around the iBOB or Touring bike lists as I do, you'll come across a number of folks who have broken the rails on the Brooks saddles that have the copper-coated rails. So, I was thinking I'd be doing a great public service to sort of document and photo the re-railing of the saddle for the benefit of mankind. I didn't do too well on that account.

The reality is, you just have to brute force that sucker on there. The deal is, is that the leather is really stretched over the frame. There's quite a bit of tension there. As we figured, you have two options:

1. Fit the nose hardware in the front and attempt to pull the leather over the rear of the saddle while you punch in the rivets, or

2. Punch in two of the rivets in the rear, then figure out a way to jam the front hardware into the nose.

Option 1 seemed impossible. We had some extra rivets so we decided to go with Option 2, figuring that we could drill out the rivets and go back to Option 1 if we totally hit the wall.

As I mention, it took about an hour. It's brute force and some filing and squeezing the front hardware in a vise to shape and squish it a bit. There's some wrestling, some swearing, some head scratching, and a large rubber mallet involved as well. If you have a saddle with a broken rail and you are trying to get it repaired, all of this non-precise instruction will make sense. Granted, it likely won't help much, but it will make sense.
After you force the front hardware into the nose, punching the rivets is pretty straight forward. It's also a two person job. One person to hold the saddle and the punch and the other to strike the punch. I'd love to see some pictures of the folks at the Brooks factory putting these together. They must have some pretty specialized vices and hardware.


Updates
Swapped
Bike swap will be next year. There's a back story there, and it will be told. And I will tell it. But not now.

Trek
I've been riding the Trek and it's everything I want it to be. It's back at Hairy Gary's getting fit for a convertible rack. He says a week. I say I'll start bugging him in a week. It is a really fun bike to ride.

Liza is Certified
This should be the headliner -- Liza did her 2 weeks at UBI and just got her test results back today. She is officially a Certified Bicycle Technician. She took lots of pictures of bikes and there's a couple shots of her at UBI here. UBI is not an easy course -- Liza didn't have a ton of mechanical experience going in, so she had to work super hard. And she did: staying late, going in on the weekend to practice.
She rules. Since she's been home, she's totally reworked our little shop into a pristine workshop; she's built two wheels; overhauled her daily driver; swapped out a crank set and handlebars on my buddy's RB-T; and has a bike to-do list a mile long.

Bicycle Advisory Board
Next Meeting. All meetings open to the public: Tuesday -- Feb 20th, 6PM in the City Hall, bottom floor in the Council Briefing Chambers.

Funkenstien and Other Random Fillers

Oh my god! I want to do more riding but I'm a lazy bastard. I've got into the post holiday funk and it's a hard climb out. I will, no matter what, start getting out again in two weeks. Really. It's not that I have to for some weird-o regiment here. It's that I have to because my whole world just sucks when I'm not getting out and riding a few miles first thing in the morning. I'm going nuts here. Why two weeks then? Well, Liza is in Ashland OR at UBI. That's a bike school. She's learning bike maintenance and loving it. That will hopefully relieve me as the primary bike fixer in the family, and I'll finally learn the right way to do things from her. Anyway, I'm on my own until she gets back and it's sort of frowned upon to leave your 4 year old at home alone in the morning. So that's my excuse for now. Come back in two weeks and see what it is.

Bike Swapin'
Ok, Spokane needs a bike swap. Make that "the Inland Northwest." I'm on a mission with some friends here to put something together. Watch this space.

Dumb bike update
A month or so ago I wrote a review on 63xc.com about our funny Fuji fixed gear mountain bike. Here's the URL if you're interested: http://www.63xc.com/johnspeare/laidback.htm. Anyway, I expected not to like this bike. But I've been digging it. It was intended for Liza, but she pretty much hates it. Way too much reach. I tried mustache bars, flared drop bars, flat mountain bars and we've finally hit on something she doesn't hate as much: big-ass flared albatross bars. I'll take a picture one day. Anyway, I haul Maddie to school with this bike every day. When I have to make a run to the store, this is the bike I grab. It's like an SUV. It's got huge studded fat tires on it. It's geared super low and as a fixed gear, it can just go everywhere as long as you're willing to sacrifice your knees to get there. With the albatross bars, I really like it more than any other iteration.

The end-all-be-all-bike update
I think I've ridden my Garyized trek a total of about 11 miles. There were a couple days there where snow was not covering the ground and I got in a couple short rides. It rules. I've not changed any of the issues I wrote about in the last blog -- so, there's still work to be done. I've decided that I really can't provide a full on report on exactly how much it rules until I do a really long ride on it. Like at least 50 miles. But really, it should be around a 100 miles. Those in the know say that low trail bike are better handling for folks that are about to fall over from exhaustion. So I need to test the bike under those conditions. At my current rate of non-ridingness, maybe I'll only need a 10 mile ride or so to test it out.

Ugg. I don't even want heat here. I just want clear roads. Not roads that are mostly clear with the randomly, yet well-placed ice patch, but clear. And above 30F.

Making the Perfect Bike

In the last year or so, there has been a bunch of real and virtual ink spilled on the merits of low-trail bikes. The catalyst for all of this is Jan Heine, who publishes "Bicycle Quarterly," which in my opinion, is the best bike magazine around by a huge long shot.




Anyway, Jan's a huge proponent of low-trail bikes. "Trail" has to do with the front end geometry on bikes. It's the result, mainly, of head-tube angle and fork rake. A low trail bike tends to feel a bit "twitchier" compared to high trail bikes, which feel more stable. These are all feelings, and likely, riding any basically normal bike for a couple blocks will result in the rider making adjustments. So... you'll get used to any of these bikes. And "twitchy" has a negative connotation I guess. So, maybe "lively" is a better word?




The majority of production bikes sold today have high trail. In some cases, like with my 1991 Bridgestone RB-T, the trail is in the middle: not really low or high. In fact, I don't know of any low-trail production road bikes by any manufacturer. I'm not sure why high trail bikes have now become the norm. Apparently, most French bikes up to the 70's or so were low-trail. English bikes tended to be high trail. This makes sense when you consider where the cyclists in these countries tended to carry a load. Bikes optimized for front-end loads perform better (easier to go no hands, quicker turning, etc) with lower trail. Apparently, French riders/cyclotourists tended to have front bags mounted above the front wheel. English riders were big on saddle bags. Loading up a high-trail bike with a saddle bag makes for a smooth ride. My high-trail Atlantis excels with a fat load in the back. It does well with a load up front too, since high-trail bikes are OK with loads up front, they are just better with loads in the rear. My mid-trail RB-T is a nightmare with a load up front. Just awful.





Anyway. I picked up a 1983 Trek 520 about a year ago and let it sit around. This bike is a low-ish trail bike with standard diameter tubing and a geometry very similar to the French bikes of old. My buddy, Alex, who lives in Seattle has the same bike. I actually spent about 40 miles or so on his Trek when I realized how much fun it was to descend on. In addition, the bike felt just wonderful on climbs. Very similar to the feel of my RB-T. I had a very hard time figuring that one out. I assumed it was the shorter chainstays. But in measuring them and comparing them to my other bikes, the logic didn't add up. It turns out, the standard diameter tubing was the reason climbing and accelerating felt so wonderful. The majority of steel bikes produced today use over-sized tubing. Apparently, as diameter of steel increases, the stiffness increases exponentially. So, that "thing" I was feeling was flex. Or what Jan Heine calls "planing." Whatever. It's real and when I'm on an bike with OS tubing, that "thing" is not there. By the way, I'm in no way a fast, racer-type rider. So feeling this "thing" was a new experience for me when I first rode my RB-T. The "thing" combined with the quicker handling on descents was a huge deal when I rode the 520.


So, I came to the conclusion that what I wanted was a low-trail bike made with standard-diameter tubing. There is no production bike today that fits this. Kogswell is dang close, and I've riden the P/R about 50 miles. But when riding the P/R, I didn't feel that "thing." My guess is that it's the OS tubing, but maybe not, because there is a very vocal group of P/R lovers on the Kogswell mailing list that absolutely love the bike. Maybe it's all in my head.



Anyway, the 1983 Trek 520 is just about the right bike, but it is missing a lot of key components that I must have in a bike. The main ones were the ability to fit fat (well, bigger than 28mm) tires with fenders. I also have a thing for canti brakes since they just make sense to me in so many ways. The 520 had low trail, but not low enough. I wanted 40mm of trial, as that's the "magic" spot according to those who I trust. I also wanted the bike to be an everything bike: it must haul a good load comfortably; it must be good for all day rides. So, I decided to take the bike to local frame builder Hairy Gary and have him re-work it. Here's the list I gave him:

• rake forks to 58mm (this will result in 40 mm of trail)
  


• spread rear triangle to 132.5
  


• braze-ons: water bottle mount to seat tube; 3rd water bottle mount under down tube; cantilever posts for 584 wheels; pump peg; attachment points for mini-rack on front fork; down-tube shifter mounts; rear brake cable stop bridge for canti-brake; rear-rack (chain stay) barrels; add'l eyelet on front fork for rack (on front side of fork dropouts)
  


• strip/paint

He's also brazing me a custom rack that I can attach (sans tools) to the Nitto mini rack I will have on there. The custom rack will be a big-ass platform that I can strap big stuff too. Like a giant Wald basket. Or a huge package. Or who knows what.

So, he's so close to being done. The pictures here show where he was at this morning. Hopefully he's done with the fork now and the couple other bits. With some luck it will go to the powder coat guy this week. I asked him to surprise me on the color. Sparkles are good. Pink would be too surprising. Other than that, go for it.

Seeing the frame in the nude with flux and brazing goo on it really got me excited. I have the bits I need to build it up: typical used 90's mountain-bike parts and fenders and a B-17. I'm ready.