New-to-me LFB

Mark Knokey's Elephant. I think there are only two of these CX bikes in existence.
I'm making up a new acronym. Remember, you saw it here first: LFB. That's your friendly, Local Frame Builder. My normal LFB, Hairy Gary, is busy or something. He's not returning calls right now. He may be hunting or visiting his family in the mid-west.

I've heard of the local guy that built the Elephant bikes at one time and I've admired Jake McBurns' Elephant CX bike many a time. Anyway, I talked to John at REI about figuring out who could do the RB-1 work for me. He told me to try Dave at 2 Wheel. I talked to Dave, who said that his torch/shop room got turned into a baby room, so he hooked me up with Glen, of Elephant fame.


Liza's Fuji fork

Glen is close -- like 2 miles away. I took the RB-1 over there today and the forks off of Liza's bike. She's going to run v-brakes up front on the new Fuji configuration. I also asked him to braze on some barrels according to the Alex-standard front rack mounting points. He was done with Liza's forks in about 2 hours. The RB-1 will take a bit more time. That will be about a week, since I blew him out of canti posts.

He's made bikes for Serotta and Bontrager back when Bontrager had his own shop, so he knows what he's doing. He mentioned TIG'ing the cracked bottom bracket from the inside, to fill the crack, then brazing on the outside. I wish I would've asked more questions on that to understand it better. I'll get the full story when I pick it up.

Obsessing again

What is wrong with me?

I was thinking about the old RB-1 in my basement the other day. After I cracked the bottom bracket, I took the parts off it, moved them to a new bike and stuffed the RB-1 deep in the basement.

It's a fun frame to ride and I just hate having it sit down there. Its presence has gnawed at me for a few months.

I think I have a plan for it. From a collector's perspective, the frame is ruined, so I don't have to feel bad about hacking it. And hack it I will. 

I think a quick bead of hot metal in the bored out crack of the bottom bracket would do the trick to make it ridable again. And while Hairy Gary is doing that, he might as well add some canti-posts and a hanger, maybe cold set the rear triangle to 135. I have a 650B wheelset laying around. Why not?

Why not indeed?

Shorts and sandals

The thermometer read 39F this morning. That's basically 40. Which is about 50, which is solid short and sandal weather here in Spokane.

Granted, I have two pairs of socks with my sandals, and I'm wearing my woolie leg warmers, but by the time I ride home, I'll be bare-pastey-legged and single-socked.

Bring on the crocuses!

Bike scavenger hunt

I'm a JIT blogger...

Simon is putting on a bit of a shindig ride tonight. When I chatted with him a couple days ago he had cooked up an interesting scavenger hunt sort of deal. Complete with cheap drinks and prizes. Go to Fixed the Race to check it out.

First fall aught nine

The evil off-camber ice section that was my undoing

I took my first fall of the year today. I have minor falls and dabs all the time. But this is the kind that registers as a "wreck," where it hurts.

A couple days ago on Pat's blog, I was carrying on about how I've not fallen this winter. I'm not superstitious at all, but if I were, I might attribute today's wreck to the boastful comments I left for Pat.

As I told Liza, it was a freak accident that could've happened to anyone. I was riding the still-frozen Highdrive trails. Going down some single track -- a tad faster than maybe was prudent, since I was on a bike with slicks -- and misjudged some off-camber ice patches. It was an over-the-bars-affair.

When I was younger, the thoughts that would go through my mind just as I came to a landing in this situation were something like: "crap, I hope I don't have to walk home now..." Now, as I get older, my thought today was, "crap, I hope I can still walk..."

Good news: the frame and wheels are ok. The only issue was a tweaked brake lever, which I straightened and tightened down when I got home.


The dreaded tweaked lever

Not as good: my left ankle has a small gouge that doesn't do the pain any kind of justice, nor does it encourage sympathy from Liza. And my knee is hurting more as the day wears on. Really.

Broke a spoke

I busted a spoke today on my 747. I made it home easily -- about 4 miles. I'm impressed by the wheel build, one spoke busted on the rear wheel but the wheel rolled good enough and didn't rub on the frame. That's also good frame design: having room for a bit of wobble.



Luckily I had a spoke at home that was close enough in length. It's not butted like the other spokes, but that's ok. I wonder if I'll have a rash of broken spokes now. What's slightly odd is that it broke on the non-drive side.

Fixed gear to eight-speed in under 5 minutes!

The fixed configuration

The evolution of the 720 continues. I put the Origin-8 Space Bar rip off of On-one Mary bars on there so I can haul the big front loads.

It's still an ice bike until I'm super sure that the ice is gone. Hence the studs.


The 8-speed configuration

But now, I can swap between fixed/free and 8-speed in about 5 minutes... assuming I don't have to change the tire. Come spring, I'll have all wheels wearing my favorite high value tire, the non-tourgaurd Panaracer Pasala, 32mm.

I'll also have a Tubus Fly on the back for the bucket panniers. I have very specific plans for the bucket panniers this spring.

These pictures really show how important the placement of the rear brake bridge is. I wish this one was just about an inch or so higher. When I run smaller tires, it's not so pronounced and I can fuss with the fender line. But with these fatties in there, I need every mm of space, so the squeeze spot is obvious.