Where am I?

I've ridden past this spot a number of times and never noticed the rockwork here.

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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.

You've Got Your Tux, Right?

This Saturday is Prom.

Get your partner, get gussied up, and get on your bike.

Swamp at 7PM.

Memorial Day Weekend

Mellow weekend. For the second Sunday in a row some friends and I have done the High Drive Churchin Ride. It's about an hour of tooling around the trails. Roughly it translates to 20 minutes of riding, 20 minutes of pushing bikes up steep hills, and 20 minutes of resting/panting. Then we go to the Scoop for coffee.

Sunday night, we did a dinner ride. We stopped and ate outside at Bangkok Thia (formerly: Riverview). Then we tooled around the north side. Then back over the river, where we ended up at the Elk for beers.

Taylor here is training for the Twilight Race Series. He mumbled something about how his body is a temple and how a high performance machine required high performance fuel -- as he gobbled down the "moon unit" and swilled beer after beer.

Not really. Liza bought that and we all ate it. I just wanted the photo op. By the way. Put June 17th on your calendar. That's the Lincoln Park Criterium. That'll be a fun one to watch. Races start at 6 PM. The upper piece of Lincoln Park is a natural race course. Short and fast.

Here we are grouped at Ruby. On the way to pick up Mike and Beth. Top right is Mike and Diane. They both recently got new bikes. This was Mike's inagural ride on his new bike.

My buddy Alex posted a bunch of pics of his Memorial Day cargo bike ride in Seattle. Among other beauts, there was a Big Dummy, with the blender attachment in action. An older Rock and Roll similar to mine. It's pretty much built up how I want to build up mine: drop bars in the front, bar-ends, mountain stoker bars, etc. Mine is on loan at the moment, but we're repo'ing it this winter to build it up for next year. Liza and I will be going for some land-speed-records on that.

I love this trailer. I like that the wheels are sort of protected from the load and that you can load over the wheels on the flat platforms. Smart design. I have a friend that may be able to help me build something like this. I like the small steel square tubing too. I wonder how it connects to the rear wheel?

Of course there was a Kogswell P/R. Nicely appointed and hauling a trailer. A Bakfiest with a Stokemonkey and this cool-ass, S&S'd cargo bike. I wonder if this is one by David Wilson?

Hanging with Jacque

Lotta Watta - Riding the Centennial Trail this Weekend

My original plan today was to go out to the Valley via the Palouse. I like taking Sands road over the hill. I went about 4 blocks in the direction of the Palouse and changed my mind. The wind was blowing too hard. I've been caught on epic wind rides on the Palouse before and I'm not into it.
I figured I would check out the the flooding on the Centennial Trail. Consider this a public service. If you're thinking of riding the Centennial Trail this holiday weekend, be sure to ride in shoes you can submerge.

You can read more on the flooding in Peaceful Valley at the Out There blog.

The Edge Water Village Apartments on Upriver Drive. Can't get much edgier than that.
There were 2 sections of Upriver that were too deep to go through. One in front of the retirement place, and another about 1/4 mile down the road. Both are easy to avoid. This section, in front of the "Edge Water" ended up being deeper than I liked; my bottom bracket got submerged, but not my hubs... just barely though.

There were 3 sections of the trail east of Argonne that were too deep to ride through. Each was passable though.

This one required shouldering the bike and rolling up the knicks past the knees. I had to slog through the water on the left side of the photo, along the fence line. It's deeper than it looks from the this photo. It went up to my knees at the shallowest point.

You can see the trail going up the hill to the right to get by this one. It's easy enough to ride. There's a short and steep little descent in soft dirt on the other side.

Since I had planned on going to the Valley yesterday afternoon, I had called my mother-in-law, who lives on Pines, to see if she'd be around for lunch.

Indeed.

When I showed up, I could smell her kitchen 100 yards away.

Maria had just finished making a big pile of bread. She also made polpetta sugo (meatballs with sauce). I tried to have just 2 meatballs, but I ended up having 4. I also had a huge still-warm roll.

When it comes to good food, I'm so lucky. In addition to Maria, who is my Valley connection, my mother owns a Spokane cooking class company. She's on the south hill, so if I'm strategic in my timing and routing, I can usually score some great lunch fixings as she is preparing for the night's gig. She also has amazing bread. I created the natural starter that she still uses for her bread before Maddie was born, over 5 years ago. I named it Owen. I'm such a junkie for good bread.

Some Stuff

The Fuji Turd is done. If you're in Spokane and you want this frame, let me know. It'll go to the first person that wants it.

There are two conditions: you must build it up and ride it in the next month or so -- no hording (why would you want to?); and secondly, when you're done with it, you must give the frame away with the same conditions.

Comes as shown: with a post, front u-brake, and a poorly adjusted headset. Fits 2.3" knobbies (barley), has horizontal dropouts spaced at 135mm.

Party on Turd, you have served me well.

Maddie has conquered the monkey bars. She goes forwards and backwards. She's really proud of that, but for some reason, she won't let me photo her, so I have to be stealthy.

Sucky rack at Sacred Heart. I have followed a few commuters to Sacred Heart. Apparently the hospital has great facilities for employees, but I can't find a bike rack by the Womens/Surgery center.
And sweet new racks at the Rocket on 42nd. These are really "leaners," which is all they need up there, since cyclists go and sip on a beer or coffee and can watch their bikes. Nice use of plumbing pipes and fittings to make a cheap rack that is more effective than 90% of all other bike racks in town.

I laced up a wheel tonight. Thanks Sheldon for your straight-forward directions. I've only built a dozen or so wheels, but when I do, I use Sheldon's method. It's easy.

I'm tired and pissy since it looks like the wrong dust cap came with the hub, which means at least a 4-5 day delay in getting the bike on the road. Errg. I wish there was a LBS that totally rocked the internally geared hub deal.

I'll true and tension the wheel sometime this weekend. The hub is a SRAM S7. It's going to go on my 520, along with some swept back bars, a chain guard, and some more rackage. The point is to build a good townie/porteur. It's even going to have platform pedals.