Another Dumb Bike

Actually, there's nothing dumb about the bike, only its owner. Who aside from being dumb is smart enough to be very pleased with this biek. Here she is after a shakedown ride in the woods.

When my Redline showed a crack on it's head tube under the headset cup my awesome LBS produced this frame from a back room. It had been built up and then things happened and then torn down to sit in a back room until rescued by a needy soul.

The frame is Tange Infinity tubes TIG'ed together into a very satisfactory Cross/All-Roads/Bike-Bike geometry. This isn't a cyclocross race bike, though it would serve, The bottom bracket is a bit low for that and the sloping top tube leaves it a bit narrow to shoulder. Besides there are fender brackets and bottle bungs and all that happy civilized stuff you don't need for racing.

Many of the parts from my Redline went right on. The only fancy bits are that wheelset that was something special back in the last century. Oh, and the tires. These are Schwalbe Racing Ralph tubulars and I very much like them. Excellent all-around tire that rolls spectacularly well on grass and soft stuff.

Here's the drivetrain:

Campagnolo Mirage, Shifters and Ders. The rear has been replaced by a Veloce since this photo was taken. Cranks are Dura-Ace from back in the day with a 48t big ring. Because, even though I'm not all that slow, but not that fast either.

More About My Stupid Cheap Mountain BIke

Yeah, I'm going to go on a bit about this one because it's been so much fun for me lately. There are very few things that I don't like about this bike. One is the graphics. Way too much stuff going on with arrows and chevrons and big bright colored letters everywhere. The other is that it's heavy.

Heavy isn't the worst thing in the world. The law of bike parts is "Light, strong, cheap - pick two." The worst thing is when you don't get two. Stuff that's expensive and breaks or is heavy and feeble. The guys who shopped the stuff for this bike did a good job: It's all cheap and it all works. I'm suspecting the frame is the lightest thing on here, relatively speaking.

Having the opportunity I've upgraded a few things for both weight and function. First the big one: The fork.

The Suntour XCM is a better fork than you usually find at entry-level. But not that good. Off it came and on went a Rockshox 30 Gold TK Solo Air. Which is way too long a name for any single component. This did three things. It cut just over two pounds off the weight of the bike. More importantly it took it right off the front greatly improving the balance. Even more significant, this is a much better fork. Better traction, smoother ride. On my first ride it took me ten miles to realize that this thing was completely hooked up and wasn't going to break loose unless I worked hard at it. There are lighter forks and some are a bit smoother but this thing is dialed right into the top of the price/goodness ratio. You'd have to spend a lot more to get even a little better.  Eventually I'll be re-doing the bars and getting a lock out button on there.

I installed this with a Cane Creek Ten Headset. One of the best pages on the internet is The Cane Creek Headset Finder. I looked up my bike and the spec of the the steerer tube and it told me what to get. Install went smooth and perfect and the headset itself is smooth and perfect. An extremely gruntling product. The Ten Series headset isn't as fancy or light as the 40 or 110, but it is inexpensive and this is an inexpensive bike.

The other big upgrade was the crankset. The old one wasn't broke, but it was indeed heavy and not pretty and I found someone selling a Shimano SLX set for a very good price. On it went.

Looks good on there, don't it. Saves just about a pound. There is a slight issue, the front derailleur doesn't quite have enough adjustment range to completely clear the small ring so there's a little rub I can hear on the stand. My last bike didn't even have a small ring. So this is completely a non-issue. Whenever something breaks I'll upgrade on the der.

So here she is. The front brake hose has been edited since this pic.  Don't you wish my prose has.

Keep riding and having fun out there. Back with more later.

Here's the Current Mountain Bike

There she is. On a nearly barely ride-able but photogenic gravel path, propped on a bag full of CDs. Hey, quality bike bloggers still listen to those. Or so I'm told. The biggest improvement to the bike at this point is the removal of 7 grams of stickers from the rims. Much better. Faster too, I'm sure.

The cabling is still a mess in this pic with the cables dragging on the top of the fork and otherwise all over the place. Then there was that unfortunate NDS crank arm loosing that messed up an otherwise fine ride But after having had some quality miles I gotta say, I approve heartily. It still weighs more than I'd like, but there are parts arriving to help that. And, so do I so there's that.

The seatpost that is on there, a somewhat used and tatty looking Forza took off 100 grams all by itself and it went on just to get a little more setback. The saddle got a notch of downward tilt after this photo and is now where it belongs. Oh, and that stupid warning sticker is gone. The poor bike was lousy with warning stickers all over the place. Just infested.

The fork works. The spring is a little light for my just (finally) under 200 pounds, the lockout works, the rebound damping definitely works and it tracks just fine.

The brakes needed to be switched; I've been riding with the rear brake on the left since I was a kid and am not going to change now. When I made the swap I shortened the rear brake hose a bit and used the $10 Tektro bleed kit. One thing that wasn't perfectly clear or that I skipped over in haste, is that the compression ring ("Olive" in the slang of bike savvy people) has a tapered side that goes toward the nut - not toward the cylinder as I'd suspected. The failure mode was one that I was happy to see on the stand and not on the trail. Got that sorted, got them bled and they work perfectly. No drag, noise or any other unfortunate tendencies. I did wipe the rotors with acetone before going anywhere.

At this point she's due to go back on the stand for her 100 mile check-up and maybe some upgrade.

I'll tell you about it in painful detail then.

Public Service Anouncement

To help promote the safety and awareness of the Dumb Bike Blog reading public (both of you) we are posting this informative post in the form of an informative post.

If you are riding along through the woods after a stupid low speed fall and feel that your rear derailleur is not working quite right, stop and check it out.

Don't be like the dumbass writing this post and keep just riding along thinking "Hmm, this isn't shifting right at all. I should probably check that out soon."

That was a really nice wheel. And, it will be again.

Anything Interesting Happen?

Yes, I'm back to blogging bikes.

There was awhile there when life, health, marriage and stuff happened. Stuff. It Happens. I was actually not riding for a couple of years. Got back on the bike last summer and then bike theft. A couple were recovered, one of them fatally wounded. Missing, was my mountain bike, the Beast.



Yeah, I know, old technology, but this was my most ridden bike. It was rugged and fast and fun. I love riding in the woods. Also, the Florida sun will kill me. I can acclimate to the heat, but not the sun.

I Finally have a replacement, of sorts. Being of meager bike budget I shopped hard for a good used bike locally but without result. The search widened. It became apparent that newer things like disk brakes and bigger wheels were not only good things, but the way to go. I looked for something respectable and modern and resorted to eBay and PinkBike. Finally found something new, in a box from a regular retailer (all those things are unusual for me) that was a solid step above entry level at a very entry-level price and went with it. Review and upgrade stories to follow.

The fatally wounded bike was my Redline Conquest. I had bought the frameset used from John Verheul who had flogged the thing as a professional racer for years. Then I raced it (as a clumsy amateur) and rode it and beat it up for years. Then it was rode like you stole it by someone who actually stole it.  It died of a cracked head tube. Being the way I am, I was tempted to just put a hose clamp on it so it wouldn't collapse suddenly and keep riding. But, saving my life and already dubious dentition, was Jordan, the proprietor ofVélo Champ Cycle Sport, who pulled a somewhat used and shop-worn Charge Filter frameset out of a back room and made me one heck of a deal. More about that bike and its build-up in a future post.

So, yeah. I'm riding again and playing with and working on bikes and actually have stuff to write about these days so I'm reviving this dumb bike blog.

Thank you for coming by.