A bit spotty this past month, to be sure. Started slowly, and then was out on my back for a couple weeks with a flu.
When vague lucidity returned, I did manage to get the Quickbeam rigged up and running again, which was especially good as the Hilsen’s replacement crankarm from Ritchey seems to slip on the splined bottom bracket spindle. Nothing like a slightly out of alignment crankset to get your attention. To their credit, they wanted it back immediately, which means Homer is currently one-footed.
Cobbled together 140 miles on the bike, almost all of it in the last four days. Got out in beautiful weather today and rolled around on a nice loop for a couple hours. It felt long, but good. Really, really good.
Even with a week and a half gap, snuck into yoga for 7 sessions, though a couple times I think all I managed was mewling kitten pose. No running. Lotsa coughing and sleeping at odd hours. A 5 day span with only a total of 3 meals, more ‘cuz I was sleeping through it was wasn’t hungry when awake.
But, y’gotta get one of those out of your system now and again. At least I rode today.
2009 Bikey Miles So Far - 3141
and a Happy Halloween to you!
I’ve finally figured out that I get depressed when I break bike parts. Maybe that’s overstating things a little. I mean, it’s not like I’m weeping-in-the-streets depressed, but nonetheless, it bugs me. I don’t like seeing the parts break.
Certainly things break. And the recent crank failure appears to be a sub-spec part, so it wasn’t operator error. However, there’s a distinct lack of alternatives, and that’s pretty much my own damn fault. My combination of sloth and deferred maintainence kind of caught up to me. And that gets me clearly depressed.
Let me explain - I’ve mentioned this axiom before:
“As the number of bicycles increases, the chance that none of them will work correctly increases exponentially.”
Which means that when a wheel on one bike isn’t quite true, you tend to start using the next one, which then develops a bit of toe-in error and squawks whenever you squeeze the rear brake. So, you leave that one hanging in the garage - certainly meaning to get back and spend a few minutes with the wrenches to heal that up - and use the next for a while.
In my case, I’d been riding the Quickbeam until my forward motion was rudely interrupted by my index finger coming between me and a suddenly-opening truck door. That bent up the brake lever and bars well beyond repair, tweaked the stem and saddle rails and introduced me to the glacial-molasses world of insurance reimbursement.
Since the Hilsen was looking for use, once my shoulder and neck would allow it, that became my main ride.
Now, I did figure that I’d get the Quickbeam up and running again once the broken and damaged bits were replaced. (And, just to divert briefly, the other driver’s insurance company has been decidedly mute on paying off my damage. Hey, it’s only been 90-freakin-days!!!) So, maybe my sloth is a little off the hook on that one…
But, before I decided to try out the Brooks Swift on the Hilsen, I had been moving saddles around a bit, and had pulled the B-17 off of the Dawes fixed gear. Which meant it was dutifully awaiting its next assignment while brandishing a naked seatpost.
My geared hardtail mtb has a variety of issues - rear wheel, drivetrain, ratty cables - most of which have been multiplied by disuse and the removal of pedals sometime during last year’s cyclocross season. In fact, the geared mtb has been used so little, my most-frequent ride buddies have actually never seen me riding it. This is both comedic and tragic.
(And is starting to veer a little off-topic as well. It’s just meant to put a couple of asterisks next to the players on the scorecard - to see the ones who are nursing injuries. )
With the snapping crank of a week and a half ago, that pretty much left me with a set of mostly unrideable bikes. Oh, the Zeus is still plugging along, and it’s been my local errand bike reliably for a while. But, there is something in the back of my mind that troubles me when I’m relying upon a twenty…no… thirty year old bike and components of somewhat unknown provenance. I tend to treat it with the respect and fear that demands.
The last horse in the barn is the Bridgestone MB1SS. Which, by virtue of its singlespeedyness remains reliable, generally capable of being run hard and put away wet. But, there too, the gremlins of entropy chew greedily upon the tendons of hope. The last few times I’ve been out on the trails, there has been the relatively infrequent slip of the freehub, the tinny and thin alarm sounding the beginning of pawl death.
Now, it isn’t that I can’t fix these issues (well, except for the Zeus, which will only - hopefully - continue to grow older). But, free time has been at a premium this past month, and riding rather than wrenching has been the course I chose. And, if the folks at Ritchey Logic had suggested that the whole crankarm thing would be something other than a replacement, I would’ve pulled the other arm, swapped out the bottom bracket, slapped on the Sugino XD2’s that have been sitting in a box since the C. Xavier Hilsen project, and either swapped the 48T ring from the Ritchey or dropped the front derailleur down for the 46T on the Sugino, and I would’ve been good to go.
And I’m hoping to get free for a couple hours this week to head across the bay, drop in on the folks in Walnut Creek and pick up the bits I need to get the Quickbeam out again. That bike deserves to be on the roads and trails, and I’m missing the steady silent rhythm of riding fixed.
Even writing about getting those bikes going has perked me up a bit. (And I do think I’ve been fighting something this last week, which generally doesn’t help one’s outlook.) No telling what a little bit of time and energy can do.
Riding down to Sausalito Wednesday evening. I’m engineering for a class and managed to get my messed up lighting issues solved so that the nighttime return trip won’t be too treacherous. In fact, I’m pretty pleased to be getting in some cheap miles and spend time with good friends and a talented instructor. I just miss the light to jump across from the bike path to Bridgeway, so I head forward on the less used section of wide path/sidewalk, planning to use the next opportunity to cross.
About two or three pedal strokes to regain some speed - BAM! - the whole bike shudders and my left foot is unclipped. I’m still upright and moving forward, but finding only air. It seems that I had some catastrophic pedal failure, and I look down to see, well… pretty much nuthin’…. which is kind of a further surprise.
There’s about three inches or so of crank arm left, and a slightly jagged looking silver face. I slow down, realize that I’m pretty W&TF and look back to see if there are any parts in my wake. At first it seems like everything had just vanished. Backtracking further, I see the Time pedal and it’s rather forlorn and useless appendage.
You’ll have to excuse the cruddy little phone cam shot. There are some clearer photos to follow.
The immediate issue was arriving early enough to change into street clothes for the class. I still had about 3 miles to go, and I wasn’t really going to be moving at precisely the same speed I’d enjoyed. A quick call to let them know and I saddled up and started kicking it one-footedly down Bridgeway.
It wasn’t any particular hardship, really. I mean, if you know the parallel option, it’s not particularly hilly - in fact, it could be described as just about dead-flat. A little playing around with gear choice, and the only downside was the rather, um, different means by which you contact the saddle when pedaling one-legged. Not trying to get graphic, just trying to make the case that you want to be a little careful when engaging in that method of transportation.
Made it on time, managed to catch my wife and cash in one of my “please come and fetch me” chips after class ended (she was seeing a play with a friend, and it actually worked out quite well…)
This morning, I got to play around with the better camera and record some more of the specifics - 
The bit on the bike. Looks like things propagated from the leading edge, which seems to be the darkest area.
The bit that broke off. I’m holding it in the nice morning light. If you click through to see all sizes, or just jump to the largest version, you can see the tale of woe rendered in 6000 series aluminum. The end result being that I now own a left crank arm which can be used for the lowest of bb heights…
107 is the new length. All the kids’ll be riding ‘em soon. You heard it here first.
As I was snapping these photos (all of which are over in a Flickr set, as you’d expect), it struck me that I needed to deal with this whole thing. (Hey, it was early, I was on my first cup of coffee and had to get to work.) Since I’d had some issues with the ISIS connective spline, this pair had come directly from Ritchey on a warranty. I wasn’t sure what the warranty period was, but thought it would be at least worth asking. Emailed them through their website, and got an autoresponder that said they were out at Interbike this week. Ok. Fine. I headed into work with the vague idea of swapping the stock Sugino XD’s back on, and switching chainrings to maintain the same gearing.
By the time I got back this afternoon, another email had come through from Ritchey USA. This time, they attached a helpful little pdf which documented a voluntary recall they had instituted, as some of the early cranks were busting on the non-drive side. I looked up the date codes on my nubbins, and curiously enough, it did seem to fit within the date of the recall. So, as soon as they send me the actual RA#, I’ll be sending this down to them.
It did keep me thinking. In my only other crank fracture, I was out of balance and on the ground pretty danged fast. Since the bike and I were climbing at the time, and it was a fixed-gear system, torque was pretty high, though thankfully the speed remained low.
This time around, things were on the flat, and I had a decent amount of momentum going. When the arm failed, I do remember coming down very hard on the right pedal. Luckily, I had my weight pretty well distributed. But, I think it also strongly attests to the stability of the Rivendell A. Homer Hilsen. Things went from pretty normal to very out of balance in a big hurry, but the last thing I even worried about was how to stay upright on the bike.
Thanks Grant.
Resource - Ritchey Design Voluntary Recall pdf
With last night’s evening trail loop, I’ve finally decided that there
have been enough trouble-free rides on the Poprad that I can risk
jinxing it by reporting it.
It’s
been stuck in a recursive loop of crank failures and warranty returns.
But, the folks at Ritchey have been easy to deal with, and I had the
luxury of being patient on this one. Clearly, the new forging is
correct. I like the new inletting, too. That’s it on the left
before I installed it.
The events have, of course, led me to a certain dislike of splined
bottom bracket systems. If this last go around wasn’t able to have
fixed things, I was heading back to square-taper land. As it is, the
new BB, which I had purchased somewhere in the trouble-shooting phase,
has an odd design feature - no lock ring. You just crank the thing down
and it’s supposed to stick in place. It has not given me the
utmost confidence, and I think it had a bout of creaking which seems to
have subsided. (Either that or the Joan Jett concert nipped away at my
hearing…)
Other than that, I had swapped out the Avid 6’s for the old LX canti’s which were stock on the M2.
Between the four brake arms, I was able to put together a decent
pair. The Avids had been squawkers, which I thought was my setup,
then the pads, then my setup of the new pads, then simply a result of
the front end of the Poprad. But, folks on the iBob list
had been report they were noisy buggers, and the mostly-quiet setup I
arrived at wasn’t terribly and had a ridiculous amount of toe-in. The
LX’s started with a good vocal presence, but have now been tuned to
silence. Plus, they stop the bicycle.
It’s ridicously cool right now for the first week in July, and despite
wearing my thickest wool s/s jersey last evening, I was cold as I
climbed home into a headwind. The orchid thermometer showed that it
barely crested into the 70’s on the back porch. I’ll probably be
bitching about the heat in a couple weeks.
I’ve been using a Rivendell Hobo Bag for over a year on my fixed-gear
Dawes commuter. Normally, I let things go a bit during the winter,
figuring that once the skies dry up in Northern California, it’s a good
time to go through the bike with a complete cleaning. Since the
bulk of the rains normally cease in February or so, things don’t
normally progress too far toward entropy and decay.
A
few weeks ago, I noticed that the morning light showed that the Hobo
Bag had sunk a bit. I’ve had this half-idea for a stabilizer bar
made from a bent rod, but didn’t ever execute it, so there’s nothing
really holding it up other than the two top straps and a couple of
ever-slipping cords tied around the brake hoods. The Hobo spent a
few months gettting pretty wet at times, carrying jackets, light system
batteries (no generator hub yet…maybe that’s the project for next
winter) and other heavier stuff. I pulled everything out of the bag to
reset the cords, and noticed something funny about the bottom - there
was a circle that didn’t seem to match the rest.
Drat.
A hole. How the heck did that happen?
It looks like the nut from the front brake had been poking into the fabric as I rode.
So, I wandered down to the local shoe repair spot - which has pretty
much been in the same place since the mid-1900’s. Chatted with
the fellow who re-riveted my old Brooks a couple years ago and
discussed options with him. As I talked about patching it,
I showed him the Nitto front rack for the Quickbeam, and asked him to
put another piece of leather on the back of the Hobo so it could be
mounted onto the rack.
This is the way it came out - not quite what I had in mind on the patch
- I’d really wanted a square piece that went the length of the
bottom - but pretty much the right execution on the slip-on
attachment.
I’m not sure if I’ll use it on the Quickbeam, especially since I
haven’t actually mounted the rack. But, since they had to punch a
few holes for the patch, a few more on the backside weren’t going to
make that much difference.
While this was going on, one of my eBay searches popped up this thing:
The price was right, and it showed up a couple days later.
An interesting thing, but unfortunately a bit heavy. You really
appreciate the way Nitto builds a rack when you heft the thing.
Still, it puts the bag in what looks like a swing-free position.
Also showing up this past week were my long-lost Ritchey Cross
Cranks. The original problem (documented somewhere in a previous post)
had
been that the cranks were slipping on the bottom bracket, despite being
properly installed. They’ve been pretty helpful in getting them
replaced, but it had happened a couple times now - the last time I even
put in a brand new bottom bracket just to eliminate that
variable. Despite assurances, it slipped again. This time,
when I
opened the box, things were rather different (of course, it would help
if you had seen the 3 other boxes from previous shipments, which were
red…):
They’d sent a set of Pro Road Cranks, and even sent along the road
chainrings (53/39) in addition to the Cross set (48/38).
Definitely a different forging than the Cross Cranks that had not fared so well.
Hopefully, the third set will be the charm. They’ve got to - they say “Pro”…
Got up reasonably early today and put in a short, fixed ride on the
Quickbeam. Got home and out of the shower just as a strong batch of
rain dropped.
They say that we set a record last month - nicking the ~1909 March
which had 23 days of rain. This year the 24th arrived on the 31st in
2006, so it’s clear that there are things we just do better these days.
Folks that watch the network news more than I do were all saying “We’re
getting Seattle’s rain…!”, probably because some creative
weather-personality crowed that particular line, which immediately got
piped into the earpieces of all the other weather-personalities.
I miss Pat McCormick. He would actually do something about the
weather for us.
At any rate, it isn’t like we’re going to melt. Even with the
slightly cooler temps, it’s actually reasonably pleasant most of the
times - these are showers rather than the El Nino deluges, for the most
part. Our dog is a bit pissed, and looks accusingly at me when we go
outside to find rain and wet sidewalks.
Between the Event fabric jacket which I got up in Portland at River
City Bicycles a few years back and the fendered Dawes, the worst
problem is…well, it just isn’t that bad. Californians are such
weather wimps.
Since I had finally gotten the Zeus fendered up, I ended up adding the
rack - makes a fine and useful errand bike with the two Jandd Grocery
Panniers I’ve had knocking around. However, the reach was still
uncomfortably short, so I talked Rivendell into selling me a moustache
bar for it. With a pair of oddball Mafac levers from ebay, it
should have the right “look”. Unless I can come up with a Zeus
branded stem and bars, I’m not really going to worry about that.
Also had the Sunshine-istas install the headset which was left over
from the Quickbeam. Brought it home and put the iBob-supplied fork on,
swapped stems from the original Ritchey to the Salsa that has been
hibernating for too long, put in the front wheel and carefully adjusted
the brake pads, which seemed way off for some reason. Then took the
bike off the stand and realized I hadn’t set the front wheel in the
dropouts all the way - grrrrrr - so I had to re-readjust the
pads. And honestly, there was no enough meat on them to get
proper toe-in. So, I’ll be re-re-readjusting them with the pads I
had to go get. But, the singlespeed did get out on the trails and
enjoyed the ramble. Sloppy, muddy, soaked but great.
Still a couple tech-jobs to go. As I’ve said before, each bicycle
owned increases expontially the possibility that none of them will be
running. Now that the Bridgestone is up and running (well, still need
to install new brake pads, which I just got), the Lemond Brothers are
mocking me - the headset (original Shimano from original frame) in the
open-wheel racer is gone, cartridge bearings oozing sludge and not
responding to repeated flushings/oilings. The cross bike still
has Ritchey Crankset issues - I need to pull it and send it in again,
as the non-driveside crank keeps slipping, even with a new BB
installed. Those bikes should be ready to roll at any time, but right
now they just sit there and sulk.
Felt the sky getting a bit damp last night here in Nor-Cal, and sure enough the ground was wet enough to be awakened by the sound of car tires spraying through puddles. 
Wet enough that the big-eared dog (at right) didn’t really want to get soggy feet out back. In short a perfect morning for a post-Thanksgiving ride on the cross bike. But, the Poprad mocks me from the other room - crankless and waiting for the fine folks at Ritchey USA to decide that I wasn’t fibbing about them slipping and/or not lining up. And, it’s been a couple weeks - well a bit more, actually, as they received it back on the 4th. I’ve been pressing my luck a bit by keeping the cross bike inside, as we’ve agreed upon a two-bikes-inside-the-house rule, unless I want to clear out the corner area and install another two-bike wall hook.
As the dog and I wander back into the house, I realize that the minor scale infestation on the back porch orchids has spread significantly across to a couple more plants - through my own laziness in not giving them the the superfine oil regimen. Way out back, the weird and wacky weather has the cymbidiums popping out flower spikes already - I guess having decided that the last rain we had a few weeks back was winter and the t-shirt and shorts warmth we’ve enjoyed means that spring had arrived. They are in for a rude and brutal shock when the real winter* hits.
*Yes. I realize that Northern California does not get “real winters”, and I’m a bit embarrassed to even use that phrase in describing it. But, it’s more of a “from the plant point of view”…
On the other side of the balance, I had reached the “giddit dun dammit” phase on the Zeus and it’s regained momentum nicely. Took a long lunch on Wednesday and wandered over to Mt Tam Bikes, where they kindly, quickly and cost-effectively installed the headset and fork crown race. The modeling enamal paint is not pretty, but at least it covers the worst of the rusted spots. The wrench was kind enough to ask what type of frame it actually was, as I still had all the decals masked and wrapped from when I’d planned on spraying it.
Got a good pre-Thanksgiving ride in on the singlespeed - having crawled up into the rafters to get one of my backup front wheels and re-rigged things. I don’t know where I got this - certainly I didn’t build it up - possibly someone just gave it to me. This is one I’ve never ridden, with a large diameter White Brothers hub lashed to an old Mavic 217 rim by purple nipples. It was perfectly true, but there was loose “click” sound that came from the seam area. I poked a thin wrench up through one of the nipple holes and felt something slide slightly. Then it was dead quiet. I’m not sure if I convinced myself that it was stiffer, but the front end felt a tad different on the downhills. Aside from that, I grunted and portaged my way up to the ridge, gave thanks that I could do that (and many other things that too often get taken for granted) and coursed through the trails before heading home to help cook.
More good - the western skies have blued up some, and although the clearing seems to be pushed by noticeable wind, it may dry up enough to squeeze in an after-lunch ride. Just need to avoid the parade of deal-chasing shoppers…
Rode home tonight in the first “full dark” commute. I’d been cutting out early last week, and although the lights were on, it was more dusky than dark. Nothing horrifying to report - in fact it was one of those rides where you find youself bettering the speed of traffic while heading up hill. The lack of light did make me think seriously about building up a generator hub lighting system. The little cateye on the front is really a “visibility” light more than anything which can illuminate when you suddenly run out of streetlamps - which I suddenly remembered happens just when cresting the last hill and beginning to head down at a decent speed. Pretty danged dark all at once. I need to have something in the meantime - the old NiteRider is toast, but I do have some of the VistaLite stuff in the closet. Better charge that up for tomorrow…
As I wait for the cranks to be passed through the innards of Ritchey, I’ve begun resetting the bars and stem on the Cross Bike. Back in September, I’d received one of the lugged threadless stems from the fine folks at RBW and had them send me a noodle bar as well, which matched the width of the “ergo” Cinelli which had been used on the initial build. I’d been wanting to get rid of the big honkin’ Titec stem which had been the only thing lying around when the build began. Part of the problem was that it has a 1″ steerer (OK - I don’t think that is a problem, per se. It just has effects now that the industry has decided I needed an inch and an eighth head tube diameter). The lugged threadless stem was built for the larger diameter - which I’d kind of forgotten until I pulled the old one out. Now I need to find some shim stock (or a shim kit) which will take up the 3 mm difference. Since the height of the stem where it attaches to the steerer is shorter, I need some more spacers. Everything I have in the parts bin is for the wider steerer tube on my mtb. Of course, my headset cap won’t fit any longer either, as it is too narrow, and drops down into the center of the stem. Since the front end of the bike is getting classed up by stem (and more graceful curve of the bars), all of a sudden the black spacers I had originally used and the the black canti hanger look pretty wrong.
I do enjoy the process, but sometimes you just have to laugh at how the little details conspire against you…in this case it should be a much more direct fix than trying to match the paint on the Zeus.
Kind of poked at the iBob list tonight after realizing I don’t have the parts I need, but couldn’t get too enthused at responding. Everyone seems to be a bit cranky about onshore/offshore production and it just didn’t catch my interest. Hope those OT threads finally wind down.
Commute Head Tunes:
“Sweet Emotion” version by Phish and Leo Kottke
“Regyption Strut” by Frank Zappa
After a minimum of back-and-forth, the Cross Cranks came off the Poprad and are now headed back to Ritchey. Without extensive digression, the non-drive stripped out, was replaced under warranty and upon remounting, they either (a) slip slightly on the spindle or (b) don’t line up correctly. 
Either way, the result is a set of cranks which are off by about 7 or 8 degrees. For some reason, the Poprad has had cursed cranks - two sets of Profile Carbon cranks cracking and now this. Nevertheless, confidence is high and the folks at Ritchey have seemed concerned. But, the naked bottom bracket spindle mocks me when I look at it. Now that my hip is feeling better, I’ve got no cross bike…
So, with the numerous cans of spray paint sitting on the shelf, I head down to the only bike shop that would be open at 8 pm (you figger it out…) to get a bottle of Pedro’s Bio Cleaner to get the gunk off of the Cross Cranks. Find myself shaking my head as the only way I can purchase it is either in an aerosol spray can or in a $20 blister packed “Cleaning Kit” which has a small bottle of Ice Wax (which I use) and big honking bottle of frame wax (which I don’t.) I’m half tempted to pop the blister pack, swap the spray can for the bottle and see if the UPC will scan up at the register. Does it make sense to have a “Bio” cleaner in an aerosol can? Why is it so tough to have a big bottle of the liquid? I don’t have anything back home that will work except maybe some Windex. Since I want to get the danged cranks shipped out ASAP, I give in, buy the danged spray cans and spend the rest of the evening outside muttering while cleaning.
Commute Head Tunes:
“My Generation” The Who
“Black Horse & the Cherry Tree”(?) K.T. Tunstall