Thursday, May 12, 2016

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 The rear has been replaced by a Veloce since this photo was taken.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.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

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.