So This Followed Me Home From the Salvation Army Store!

 

Been wanting something for the Senior Games and the occasional local time trials. 

So far I've oiled the chain and flipped the seatpost around. We'll see if I can like it.

Unbelievable, Inconceivable, I'm Updating This Thing

 Hi, after a year plus of life interfering with the bike thing I've got some new projects going. 

Almost two years ago I teased the arrival of a vintage Mikkelsen frame. Originally, I built it up with beautiful, shiny Campagnolo 11s parts. Mix of Record, Chorus and Athena. It was nice and my, does it ride nicely. Recently another frame came along that would be more suitable for those parts and it always bugged me to jam the wide rear hub between those dropouts. 

Well, today I rebuilt it with parts that suit its 126mm nature. Mostly 7s Shimano 105. Still have a Campy crank and front der on it. I'm allowed. Took it out for a shakedown cruise today. 

Cockpit is Nitto stem and Noodle bars and Tektro levers, the ones that feel like 9s Campy,

Wheels are Shimano 600 "Tricolor" hubs with Mavic GP4 CD rims.Tires are some Maxxis I bought like 20 years ago that are going to be replaced when the UPS truck arrives on Tuesday.

The ride went great. For once I got everything right on the workstand. Getting used to the DT shifters after 15 years of Ergo was interesting. You don't shift unless you have a reason, not just at every ripple in the road. That 13-23 cassette on the back might be a little more manly than I'll want to live with. We'll see. 

A Cycling Hero of Mine

 Big Mig. Reminds me of a greyhound leading the pack. Not a doubt in his mind that's where he belongs.

This Little Piggy is Going to Market

Way to much bike stuff. It's not quite hording but more an accumulation than collection.

Something New

UPS truck just dropped this off today:

Even better, it came with a painted to match frame!

More soon.

Found This and It Followed Me Home!

Here's How She Is

The Boyd rims built up beautifully - moved the spacer from under to over the stem for fit and balance and I'm all happy.

This Turned Out Well

With our trails covered with water I've been spending most of my time on the road.

Got a new riding partner. Put her together just in time for my birthday, too!

And, yes. That frame was a team bike from the 2000 season. Built it up with Campagnolo Daytona and a set of Zonda wheels. That isn't all period correct but close enough for my riding enjoyment. And, it is indeed a joy to ride.

This is How a Project Starts

So there were these wheelgoods advertised in one of my favorite forums. Aside from sounding like an old-timey car horn these look like they'll be really good rims.

Morewood Update

It's been awhile. A long while. I'm a little conflicted about this, while I think my crap is interesting not sure anybody else will. So not often motivated to write. But here goes, you can always just click somewhere else. I've been busy with work and spending more time wrenching and riding than writing about that stuff.

When I last posted I was just getting used to my lovely orphan, the full-suspension Morewood. My initial impressions were positive, but there was indeed a learning curve. Took a little getting used to the geometry. My brain - butt interface kept mistaking the plush for a soft surface and told me to ride like we were on sand. Got over that. Then when I thought things were going well and comfortably Strava was telling me that we were slow.  SLOW!?!

Seems that my hardtail reaction to the rutted, rooty trails around here is to go up a gear and stand and stomp on the pedals. This bike was cushy enough that I spent much less time stomping like I used to. After a bit more reprogramming of my cyclismic attitude, this thing rips. It's extremely sure-footed and as the 27.5 cliche goes very tossable. You can throw this thing down the trail and it will get you to the other side.

Current setup is a Rockshox Reba RL 120mm up front, with the OEM Fox RP2 controlling the rear. The brakeset is the SLX setup that I brought over after upgrading on my last frame. They work perfectly and there just isn't a reason to change. The drivetrain is also 10s era SLX, shifter, derailleur and crank. An inexpensive but effective Fifty-Fifty 1x chainring made the conversion from the triple easy; they included mounting hardware and a chainring bolt tool. Oh, the almost tiny cassette? It's the 12-28 that I was running with the triple. It will be replaced, but for now I don't feel any urgency, none of our trails here have been steep enough to mandate a change.  So it will happen whenever it either wears out or I start riding more of the Black Diamond trails that require it.

Liking the Nobby Nic tires a lot. They roll nicely and just chew a path through sand and leaf litter (our two main trail surfaces here). The wheels are pretty much just place holders at this point. The rear is an entry-level thing that came on my old Schwinn that continues to work fine but weighs a bunch and bores me. The front is a fairly sexy little hub from a clearance sale at the Bike Hub Store laced to a Sun rim with cute red nipples for extra speed. A future post will be all about the wheelset I'm building up now.

Feel free to hit me up with any questions or review requests. My opinions may be idiosyncratic and apply only to my riding and trails but they are honestly my observations and opinions not regurgitations of something I read or heard.

Here's a couple more pics:

Got it Built (sort of)

So, I've transferred almost everything from the old hardtail to the Morewood frame. Rebuilt the fork and set it out to 120mm so using that for the time being. Got it out for a couple of rides. My nearest trails are still in rough shape after Irma and the pigs have done some damage so the initial shakedown cruise was difficult and not very telling.

Sunday I was able to get out to some much nicer trails and really give this thing a go. Even with the barely adequate fork this bike talks to me. Usually, it says things like "why so slow" and "Dude! Leave off the brakes, I coulda railed that."

For now I'm still building confidence in how this thing rides and feels and just what it can do. There's a Reba RL on it's way to me, and a lot more learning and riding and fun ahead. I'm liking this one.

This Looks Like an Upgrade

Next a major upgrade was just delivered by Fedex. It's a 2013 Morewood Zula. Yes, I'm going for full suspension to save my aged bones any more stress and it will surely be faster over the rooted trails I usually ride. 

I'll save my rant about the dimwits who ride when the trails are wet and displace what little dirt we have exposing the roots and creating ruts for another day.

Much of the upcoming build will be parts from my old Schwinn, which is really okay because about all that's left of it is the frame.

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.