Blog#7: You don't have to go home but you can't stay here: N subtract or....plus?!
CHEESY LIFE LESSON TIME: "Oh yeah!" said the lady at the garage sale when I asked if the $15 drone worked. "Would you take ten?" To which she replied, "Well it's not mine...blah blah...so I can't." Now I'm not into drones or big into RC stuff but hey this Dad likes to play too so based on the resound-ant "oh yeah" I pulled the trigger. I came to find "oh yeah!" meant I got to spend two hours trying to fix a stripped out gear only to watch the thing try and fail to pull itself off the ground and then for me to subsequently go on some sketchy foreign website and risk my Paypal account and who knows what other personal info to get the replacement parts I think I need...hey some times in life you try to get off the ground and it just doesn't happen? Or stop buying cheap shitty drones? (at least the last failed one was only $5).
On to bikes!
THE RIDE: First things first, it's been really muggy here. Not totally horrible but enough to be fairly off putting when it comes to physical activity.
Chomping at the bit: Another week of riding with the boy, which, for sure is the stuff proud daddy dreams are made of but I've been lying in wait to get some good solo rides in. My youngest is still in daycare and my oldest will be back to school after next week so I'll have a lot more freedom. After several weeks of kid, life, work and what not else I am ready to ride especially since I have tapered to far off and am losing some health cred. On top of that I also want to showcase my unique rides and riding here. To some degree my rides at times are like performance art. For example, last year I rode every single day rain or shine.
I started out the week on the Trailway and yeah what a great bike! And not because I am into it for so little though that is part of my cheesy grin. I think one of the best things about it is the fact that it will fit a 2.0 tire and that makes it really capable. In the bike world there is this pursuit of the one does almost all bike which has pitted gravel bikes vs mtb's resulting some times in a crossbreeding of the two. I have my opinions on what works and what doesn't but tire clearance helps. I still want to swap the tires at some point for something a tad smaller and faster but the Fast Traks are really nice in the trails.
The other great thing about the bike is the gearing. I have yet to get it out on some long distance rides, and I think the 42t front ring may be a tad high for that, but the 22t low is awesome! It's not quite stump puller (imagine it coupled with even a 40t rear) but it gets the job done. On another drivetrain note (slap slap slap)I see a clutched derailleur in this bikes future. Watch the paint man!
I also want to make a quick note about the change in position with this bike vs the Giant. It may be going to drops that has me experiencing some discomfort in the center of my lower neck (prolly old man shit) but more likely the shift between riding one bike primarily, mainly the Giant, and it's (nutty) control setup, and then another. At some point I will explore bike fitting, which I don't discredit, along with a myriad of other variables that can make or break a ride, in terms of comfort. Anyways....so far the Trailway is legit. Two legit to....if you fill in the rest then you're legit?!
In other ride news last night was the last night of the Beaver Island Bikes Beers and Burritos ride. In these parts this week kind of marks the last week of Summer. Womp! And this week's "Slow Roll" as it were, was a good one for sure. My good friend went to great lengths to make sure of this and it paid off. I have lived in this area (college town, mini megalopolis of about 100k give or take) for 15ish years and the route he came up with showed me roads, areas and trails I hadn't seen or been on yet!
For the last BIBCO ride (Beaver Island Brewery Company) I also decided to mix it up a bit and bust out the fat which for the last ride and with winter coming could become a cool tradition. And for me, if you're going to ride year round you might want a fat bike. Sure you can ride pretty much anything in the winter but if you want the best odds for staying up right you a ride fat bike. On top of that they are just plain fun! I took my thoroughly dusty fat bike off the wall, put the broken/repaired Lauf Carbonara fork I got off ebay for $150 shipped (a story for another time) and the 80 mil wide MuleFuts with Minions wheel set on as well as my best pair of open toed foot wear set out for adventure!
Like I said the ride was great and went off without a hitch. The ride, Beers and burritos, from Bravo Burrito (a local institution) ensued and completed. Afterward Jimmy "G" Gerhardt and Dan "THE Man" Peterson of Onyx Racing Products showed up! For the first time this year and after the last ride (Covid? Business? Life?). If you have heard of Onyx hubs well then you are in the know. If not I will be doing a feature on the company at some point because it is a really cool local company that makes really great products!
After some super duper nerdy bike talk (it's passion not an obsession!) they invited me to join them for a few miles on their way back home and I said sure! But since they were on, um, smaller bikes than mine I made some kind of lower pace request....ha, yeah right! Out of all the BBB rides they decide to show up when I am on my fat with open toed footwear on! I'm totally having fun here but the idea of a lower pace was pretty much out the door and from the get go we were hauling arse and getting rad! I was super overlanding the fat (and making Jim jealous!). There was this mutual speed and energy between us. We worked are way from the brewery through the downtown, then the college and then to the paved Beaver trail. At that point I wasn't running my comp so I don't know what speed we were carrying but it was quick...really quick for a fat bike! The whole thing was totally unexpected and awesome! The Onyx crew are really great peeps and you will be hearing more about them, their company and their bikes in future blogs!
N+?: Well no bikes left the stable this week....in fact I ended up buying another one?! But believe me when I say it was a score?! I was perusing Marketplace, which I never do, and came across a vintage mid eighties Puch 160 mtb. The listing said it had ten miles on it and was put in the garage and it was $35! I sent a message and made the arrangements. When I got there the bike looked like it had more than ten miles on it but still looked to be in really good shape with possibly all of it's original parts. The seller was a "shrewd negotiator" so we settled at $25.
Speaking of vintage mtbs I was going to do some kind of feature on the three bikes I posted last week. My plan was to get them back into good running order with as many correct parts as possible, do some kind of ride/test comparo then get them up for sale. Well lets just say that someone from Poseidon Bikes saw them and was interested in two of them! He was interested in fixing them up and riding them but unfortunately they were a tad too big. However I mentioned that I was interested in getting one of their framesets and doing a custom graphic or paint job! BTW: My wife and I are trained artists and I am looking to apply mine and her abilities to the custom bike world. If you haven't heard of Poseidon they, in a nutshell, put out some really well thought out bikes at a great price. You'll be hearing more about them here but take a sec and check them out...after you finish my blog though!
Back to vintage mtbs I have five...so I will (need to) do something with them at some point. One quick note on the vintage mtb market...I don't think it's as hot as bmx but I think it's coming up. I assume part of it has to do with nostalgia and more of us had bmx bikes as kids but I think appreciation for old mtbs is growing. I also thought "26er" was just about dead but now I am seeing this trend toward older mtb teck. "Retro grouch" if you will. Furthering the trend may be evolving 26" tire options. And for good reason as these old mtbs are still great bikes! Especially with some minor upgrades. Get them before they get got!
NUTS AND BOLTS: A few weeks back I was working in the garage which is located in the back of our property when the FedEx delivery guy showed up with a package. After witnessing the insanity that is my bike garge-hole a conversation and relationship soon. Turned out he needed some parts for his kid's bike. It also happened that he knew a very good friend of mine...small world. Fast forward to now and he was looking for something a bit..ahem...more adult sized to ride as he himself was still riding a bmx bike. I have a few bmx bikes (I sold off most of my bmx collection) and while it is fun to take one out once in a blue moon, if your not used to it it's a tough time! Unless you jack the seat way up, and make the bike and you look ridiculous, you'll be standing up the whole time. The opposite of what long ride dreams are made of. But doing big miles is obviously not what BMX bikes are designed for. Race bikes in particular are designed for about 40 second rides through a track. At the age of 43 I tried my hand at BMX racing last year but that's a story for another time!
Fun fact: BMX has infinite age groups. You can compete at any age! https://www.usabmx.com/site/sections/3
Back to the point...
The FedEx guy needs a bike and I have bikes. But I have a particular category of bikes that are not worth keeping but not really worth anything yet not completely worthless. One of these bikes I have had for sometime is an old Peugot Courbier road bike frame set. I think it's 80's era. It was fairly low in their lineup and made of some kind of cheap heavy steel. However it does have a frame mount for the derailleur and a cool color scheme with a nice patina.
Single speed "bodge" material.
But more so a way to get rid of random bits lying around. I actually already had the bike mostly built as an SS but then dismantled it because I ended up building another SS out of a really cool bike that fell into my lap (there will be a feature on that bike). So together it went, again. Not pretty but it works. I did have one engineering problem...the rear wheel I used was not a dished ss wheel. It has a freehub and so I need needed spacers for the rear cog and while I have some nice machined spacers I didn't want to give those up. To the junk pile I went.
I found an old exhaust pipe that pretty well matched the diameter of the freehub so after a bunch of cutting and grinding I had two spacers! Garish but functional!
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