Thursday, April 14, 2016

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.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

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.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

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 ofVĂ©lo 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.