Kind of a slow paced day today. No riding this weekend, though Saturday would’ve been about perfect - no wind to speak of, glimmers of sunlight here and there plenty of folks seemed to be out enjoying the day. I was in an advanced voice acting workshop with Tom Pinto on Friday night and all of Saturday, focusing on fine-tuning auditions and enjoying the company of a great teacher and several stellar VO contemporaries. It’s the first class of the this year, and always good to see folks in person.
It also worked me like a long ride, as it’s a day and a half of pretty high concentration, focused efforts and extreme attention to very intangible things. And although I had vague intentions to get a little leg stretching ride in, I must admit that the alarm got quickly thwacked and I rolled over until the rains hit, worked a Sunday crossword with my wife and generally bumped around for the morning.
Hey, sometimes you gotta just recover.
I also began fretting a bit about next Saturday’s San Francisco Randonneurs 200K, as I realized that, curiously enough, it was going to take place next Saturday. Add to that the fact that no one has shown up for an intervention, despite the fact I seem to be favoring the Quickbeam for this year’s ride.
Things do feel a bit better this year, though that may have more to do with not doing last year’s ride. Memory can be soooo subjective.
On the other hand, there are some issues to deal with before setting off at the Golden Gate Bridge, mostly minor tech issues. But they all begin with the bikes being clean enough to deal with, so when the morning rains subsided, I threw on the Grundens bib and rubber boots and pretended to be a pit wrench on the cyclocross circuit. The hot, soapy water felt good on my cold hands, and I scrubbed both the Quickbeam and the Hilsen down a bit.
The Quickbeam is pretty much ready to go. It’s feeling as comfortable as ever these days, and between the Zugster Rando Bag afore and the Keven’s Bag aft, it can carry enough in the way of jackets and bits to be perfect. I’m going to double check the sprocket teeth for wear and see if I can’t remove the slight play that’s in the rear hub, check the chain (which I think may be worn) and replace the tires, which are just a bit thinner than I like them to be on what is shaping up to be a damp ride.
I decided that the Hilsen needs to be ready as well, if only as a spare so that if I freak out late in the week and decide I need a coastable many-geared setup, it will be ready at a moment’s notice. There are a couple of issues there - first, the bottom bracket started making some very crunchy sounds the last couple times it was out, especially when I was out of the saddle. This makes me just super-happy, as you can guess, because it’s an excuse to pull the Ritchey Cross Cranks off the bike. As much as I like the gearing and the lightness and Q-factor of these cranks, it’s just hard to trust them entirely any longer. I’ll be interested to see if they have started to slip a bit. (More on that story here.)
However, the slightly taller gearing has been nice, so I’ll probably pull the chainrings off and change the Sugino XD2 triple to a 48/38. That way I won’t have to move the front derailleur (though it will be interesting to see what that does to the shifting, since I’ll be leaving the 26T inner ring in place.)
Other than that, it needs fenders remounted. Since riding with Gino a couple weeks back and enjoying the shiny smoothness of his Honjo fenders, I’m feeling a need to upgrade. However, that’s probably not in the immediate budget, so the SKS’s in the garage will have to do in the meantime. I did get a set of Sheldon Nuts to simplify the mounting, but that’s going to skew the position a touch, so I’m not sure I’m going to mess with those yet.
The other things to resolve will be giving the saddles a treatment with the Nikwax Aqueous Wax, and hoping that the new style of Brooks saddle cover which came with my Swift will do the job in terms of protection in case of torrential rains. The downside of using the Quickbeam in fixed mode is that you do tend to be out of the saddle more, especially on any type of climbing, so that the saddle gets exposed to rains. This one does look pretty sturdy and “Grunden’s-like”…
One area which concerns me is my feet. I finally retired my old solid lorica SIDI shoes for new ones, which have a couple of mesh panels on them. Didn’t really need those under summer conditions, and now that rain and cooler temps prevail, mitigating the damp is key. I’ve got a set of Pearl Izumi “CalienToes” which are OK for cool, but pretty useless in the rain. Though I’ve silicone-sprayed them, they just don’t really cover all that much acreage. I do have an old pair of neoprene booties, but find that those get pretty danged hot over the course of a day, and they tend to collect rain at the top. I’ve got a little credit at REI right now, and was looking at the Pearl Izumi Soft-Shell Shoe Covers (as opposed to the Barrier model, which seems to be heavier neoprene.)
For the rest of the outfit, I’ve got Rainlegs and my trusty old eVent Jacket, which I’ll probably retreat once more before the ride. If I really think the rain will be torrential, I could always swap in a pair of GoreTex rain pants I have, though I’ve only ridden in those for shorter commutes.
I also spent some time forwarding route options to RBA (Regional Brevet Administrator) Rob, who had asked for those of us with local knowledge to comment on what to do if the creeks rise.
Mill Valley Option #1 (Hwy 101) -
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Mill-Valley-Flood-Option-1
Mill Valley Option #2 (via ) -
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Mill-Valley-Flood-Option-2
Kentfield Flooded Option -
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Kentfield-Flooded-Option
San Anselmo Flooded Option -
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/San-Anselmo-Flooding-Option
Then, in the last hour or so before it got dark, I cleaned out the gutters before the rains returned, slicing my palm on the sharp edge of a connector. Good thing I got a tetanus update when the I was in the ER back in June. Took a while to clean out properly, and it made me realize that I should also pack a pair of danged glasses on the brevet, just in case I need to do detail work at any point in the day. But now, as the winds rattle the windows and the rain begins in earnest, I’m glad I did the prep work.
Finally, I’ve been looking at times on the course in the two times riding the brevets. (Though I’ve filed my danged brevet card from the 2007 ride and can’t lay my hands on it…going by timestamped photos on Flickr.) Finding it interesting that the difference of about an hour between 2007 and 2008 completion, all took place in the latter part of the ride, and just averaging another mph faster over the last 40 miles or so would’ve been helpful. But, when you are out there and doing it, you give what you’ve got. This is the first time I’ll actually be using a computer on the bike, so we’ll see if that helps to keep me on track a bit better.
A couple o’ months back, I was stomping my way down to engineer a class in Sausalito and ended up pedaling the last few miles single-leggedly. (The initial post appeared here, and then I nattered more about it yonder.) Now, the fine folks down the peninsula at Ritchey Logic did address the problem quickly and effectively. It turned out that my initial left crank arm had been subject to a voluntary recall, as it had been built sub-spec (got one? ID yours with this handy Ritchey Design Voluntary Recall pdf ) They received the crank and had another one out to me within a scant few days. All good.
Well, yes and no.
Let me say a few things about the crankset. Because I really like the crankset, and it’s important to know that. They are light and have a comfortably narrow tread (“Q-Factor” AASHTA citation), use a 110mm BCD chainring and have generally done their work reasonably quietly and efficiently. But, dealing with these breaking has reminded me of a whole host of other memories and experiences concerning crankarms, their failures and the fact that manufacturers have really managed to go out of their way to complicate this part. For the most part, my frustration is with the general area of cranksets, a needlessly stormy sea in which these cranks just now happen to be swimming.
This whole discussion is multiplying and expanding in my brain right now - because the Ritchey cranks remind me of why I went with them in the beginning - replacing a reasonably high-zoot set which failed egregiously. I broke two of those. Or, more accurately, I had two sets catastrophically fail on me. That recollectioin got me thinking about the sheer number of chainrings that wore out on the mountain bike - especially during the El Nino years - ground what seemed to be too soon into nasty shark fin profiles, which reminded me of the grease-and-voodoo-incantations engaged in attempt to quiet the continually squawking but beyond elegantly beautiful Cook E2 cranks I had, and how those were horsetraded to switch over to the then-new Shimano XTR 4-bolt design, which had wonderfully meaty and long lasting chainrings. I loved that setup - until I priced replacement rings, which - I kid you not - were only a couple of movie and burrito nights difference in price from a new crankset with rings…!
I think what I really want is a set of steel cranks. But, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
It’s possible I have crankset issues. Didn’t really realize it until writing all these things out. I do hate to rant, but, dang it, there should be a simple solution for all of this stuff. It should work and be solid, hard to mung up, and not look like it was created by an art director. There should be an elegant solution. This should be available.
Man, it does seem that I’m all worked up over this. But, I don’t think I should have to buy a 10 year old set of cranks to solve this problem. Again, I digress. Back to the story.
The replacement arm arrived from Ritchey and was a “B” fit. In other words, it was tighter than what I sent back to them, and I had to really press it to set it onto the splined interface of the bottom bracket. These cranks - the Ritchey Cross Cranks (which curiously do not appear any longer on the RitcheyLogic.com website) use an “Octalink” design which Shimano brought forth to sunset the square taper design which was simple and proven, but non-proprietary. On the Octalink, the 8 splines should mesh like gears and prevent the crank from rotating on the bottom bracket spindle. Unlike a square taper, it should not really be a force fit.
I lined them up carefully, pushed them on as tightly as I could, then tightened the new arm down, then removed the bolt again to make sure it had seated correctly. Took a couple of short, post-flu rides on the bike and from about the middle half of the first ride, something felt funny on my left hip and low back. Then it would get better, then it would appear again. As I was negotiating some slow speed maneuvers, coasting with the cranks level, there was a definite shift in the left crank arm. Flipping to the other foot forward, I felt it again.
Got home, broke out the good camera and took an image of the worst of it. Digital straight-edge added for reference:
click for bigger than is really necessary.
The image is slightly misleading, as I used the non-drive crank arm as the reference. The drive-side arm is really the one that didn’t move. I could bring the arms in and out of alignment by leveling the cranks and weighting the left - forward equaled out, and back equaled in alignment. After sending this image to Ritchey, they wanted the arm back to see what was wrong. I did so and the day they received it, sent back a detailed email saying that the splines had been misaligned upon installation and that was what allowed the shifting. They also said they’d replace the arm so I could try again.
That was darned nice of them to do that. Honestly, I didn’t agree with their assessment. But, there’s certainly a possibility that my ham-fists and incrementally increasing farsightedness combined to do that. I’ve bent bits, snapped bolts and generally mucked up mechanical adjustments. Just didn’t think I did then.
Now, I did have an unplayed card had they chosen not to replace the replacement. Y’see, this is actually the second time this has happened. The first set I got of these had a similar issue, and as seen here the angle was more dramatic, but I rode more miles before becoming convinced there was an issue - 
In this instance, Ritchey had dealt very kindly with the situation. The first arm had actually stripped out, and this was the replacement set. They replaced this as well, with the crankarm which ended up snapping. In the case of this arm, it had set easily upon the splines, so there really wasn’t an installation issue. My eyes were better back then, too.
Back to the Future - well, the future of a couple weeks or so ago. The 2nd replacement arm that Ritchey sent fit more easily onto the spindle. Just to make sure, I used the camera to make sure that things lined up before tightening everything down. 
click for bigger than is really necessary, but it does give good detail.
I tried to be extremely mindful about the installation. Got it set into place, checked and double checked and even looked at the photo image onscreen before I put the bolt in and turned it tight.
And that’s pretty much the moment when I thought, “y’know, I really shouldn’t have to go through this to hang a phuh-reakin’ crankarm on my bicycle…”
It got me thinking that small splines are always fiddly little bits, and square tapers are stout simple means to install something. It’s actually easy enough to mount an Octalink crank one spline tooth off, so that the arms end up misaligned. You certainly (well, you certainly should) notice it before you get on and pedal, but it’s darned near impossible to not notice the 90 degree aberration if you did that on a square taper bottom bracket.
In other words, why did Shimano - or any of the manufacturer’s who signed on for the non-compatible ISIS version that came out around the same time - feel it necessary to take a simple working standard and change it?
I expect the answer might have had something to do with CNC-machining, and the boom of the mountain bike market. In the early 90’s, it seemed that anyone with an expired military contract and a machine shop was cranking out bike parts. Cranks were particularly sexy - highly visible, easy to make, easy to make unique looking. Just going to the BikePro crank overview gives 20 or so different manufacturers. My paper catalog shows about 18 pages of cranks, from companies like Kooka, Grove Innovations, Adventure Components, Flite Control, Grafton, Sampson, T-Gear, Sims and TNT. A goodly number of names that surfaced then and have since submerged.
Thing is, groovy-cool CNC’ing from raw billet can lead to some pretty dramatic failures, especially when the raw billet gets swaged onto a tapered connection and then really cranked down. Well made cranks are generally cold-forged, which means that you have to spend the money to make dies and such, but you align the grain of the metal in specific ways, to offset stresses from things like, oh, attaching them to the a tapered spindle and then torquing the heck out of them by pressing the pedals.
My recollection was that the ISIS standard and the Octalink standard came out at the same time, but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. Maybe what happened was that Shimano wanted to regain the crank business - because at that time, they were really losing ground to non-Shimano cranks (and generally, across the board, on brakes, levers, etc.) - and so unveiled this new design of bottom bracket to make sure people used their cranks. The ISIS may have been a reaction to gain the claimed benefits to the newer BB design - since the larger, hollow spindle was supposed to be - wait for it - stiffer and lighter (lordy, how many times do we need to hear that?). But, I have to believe that setting a CNC’d crank arm into a fitted interface reduced the stresses from installation.
Which is why, some 10 years later, I’m looking at my computer monitor with a magnified image of a greasy splined interface, knowing that I have it lined up properly, but still making sure that I’m removing any variable that could be claimed as my incompetence.
At this point, a couple of rides later, things continue to work as they should. But, I really have not stressed things. In fact, my working plan is to have another moderate ride or two, then remove the arm and check the splines for galling.
That working plan got me thinking about cranks which are actually made these days, because at some point, I’m going to get tired of messing around with this thing, or Ritchey is going to run out of replacement arms for me.
Sugino is the the logical first visit. They have the XD2 which was the original crank on the Hilsen (shown below), and was used on the Quickbeam as well. It’s a very good value for the money, cold forged, silver uses a square taper. There are probably only two things that fall into the negative column for me - they are a hair wider than they need to be (Q-Factor/Tread):
As a non-scale comparison, here’s the same view of an totally different crank on an entirely different bicycle:
This image was taken of the Dawes, which has narrower rear triangle spacing (hence a slightly straighter angle of the chainstay) and uses an older Shimano 600 series (last year before they renamed it “Ultegra”) road crank.
To inaccurately illustrate the difference, I hand-positioned my XD2 non-drive arm in roughly the appropriate position while balancing the bike and snapping this photo with my other hand:
You can at least get a sense that the new/current design will sit further away from the chainstay - necessary if you are designing a crank for more current, shorter wheelbase bicycles which tend to have wider stays. And, I have shown a complete inability to be hampered by slight changes in this area. Some riders may be more directly impacted by it. I get on a wider set of cranks, go “whoa! those are wide!” and then promptly forget about it within the next half hour of riding.
The Sugino XD2’s also use the evil hidden bolt arrangement. The EHB arrangement is peculiar to triple chainring cranks, I think. The first time I came across it was with the Specialized crank (Strongarm? Son of Strongarm? I’m pretty sure it’s out there someone in the parts pile…) that came on my old M2 Stumpjumper. The outer two rings are held on with a standard “sandwich” of outer ring / machined spacer on the crankarms / inner ring. The fifth bolt position is in line with the crankarm itself. At this position, they machined a small gap so that you can fit the threaded nut into position. (I don’t have an image of this detail right now. You’d think, with all the pictures I’ve taken….)
What you end up with is a gap that is a bit too narrow for the chainring bolt tool to get in there. Which means you’ve got to figure out some combination of tools and angles to keep the threaded bit from turning as you torque down the bolt. With the Specialized design, I used to have to shove a rag and screwdriver tip in there. It’s a minor inconvenience, and I seem to overcome the issue. It just always gets me frowning when dealing with it. It seems really slick to integrate the 5th bolt to the arm itself, but just doesn’t work for me.
(As a comparison, the Ritchey Cross Cranks I have use the same hidden 5th bolt design, but just threaded the hole so you use a standard length bolt and go for it. I’ve never had the threading fail, but have had one of those bolts back out on me.)
One design I like is the Sugino Alpina 2 
Simple, silver, 5 exposed bolt design, but with the clever addition of material as “webbing” near the arm itself, presumably to distribute stresses effectively. What Sugino doesn’t indicate is whether or not they have a similar tread width to the XD2’s. Unfortunately, the website doesn’t have anything other than a side view. It’s only possible to guess from the images. There are a few vendors which list the Alpina (or Cospea) which appears to be more expensive. The only domestic “for sale” listing of the Alpina2 had it at ~$125 (significantly less than the Alpina/Cospea), but also says this isn’t available.
Poking around their website again, it appears that Sugino has also added a “Mighty Tour” to their lineup. Hard to say what the differences may be - it does seem to have sharper finishing and may be an actual replacement for the coveted Alpina/Cospea. But, it also seems that sometimes models surface on the Sugino site which don’t migrate into production models.
Returning again to the larger picture, a few years ago, Shimano came up withe the Hollowtech II series, which featured an outboard bearing design and “two-piece” crankset. Basically, this let them run an even larger spindle, which they permanently attached to the right crank arm. The left arm was then attached to the other end (using smaller teeth on the spindle, but wisely using a wider alignment notch which prevented misalignment. The outboard bearing design meant that all of a sudden, facing the bottom bracket of the bicycle frame became important again. It also meant that the chainline gets adjusted by using spacers between the bearings and the frame. You aren’t going to be able to tweak the position of the front chainrings by a few millimeters by getting a shorter bottom bracket spindle.
And, I’m not against this design precisely. Initially, there were a few simple designs, but everyone now seems to be phasing those out in favor of carbon. SRAM, for example, initially brought out a Rival series crank which was silver and looked pretty darned nice and allowed the use of a smaller inner chainring due to the 110BCD. Which of course meant that that they had to change the design, going to a black anodized finish and electing to use a 130BCD (minimim small chainring size of 38T). If silver was the only concern, you can still find their “Cross” crank model around (or the indistinguishable S300 GXP), but again, you are back to using the “road” rings of 130BCD. Everything else in the upper end is a carbon crank.
Which is really off the table for me, as the cranks which I alluded to way back at the beginning of this saga - the ones which failed twice on me - were carbon. More precisely, they were carbon wrapped over an aluminum skeleton. Light and stiff and all carbony, they both failed the same way, going from perfectly fine to “that feels funny” to rubbery, bendy, twist-em-with-your-hand delaminatedness within 15 minutes. Had it not been for the aluminum bones, they would have been useless. As it was, I was lucky enough both times to be relatively close to home.
I know why they failed - it’s simple enough. The resins had not permeated all the layers of carbon - clearly a manufacturing issue. The company (which curiously enough then got out of the crankset business entirely) replaced both pair after each failure, but I never used the third replacement - sold ‘em off (with full disclosure) to someone for whom carbon held a compelling allure and bought the Ritchey Cross cranks.
The companies who are still making carbon cranks have certainly had more than a few manufacturing cycles to shake down their processes. My guess is that they have more weight in resin than they do in carbon, and cranks are probably a reasonable application for the material, as impacts tend to be few, and you can, theoretically make the highest use of the directional nature of carbon. If you are going to hang carbon on your bicycle, it probably makes sense to put it there.
I just don’t really want them on my bike. Or maybe it’s just that I’d like to have a little more choice. Carbon just strikes me more and more like a disposable material. Maybe it’s aesthetics. For me, carbon starts shiny and sleek, but gets ratty when it ages, while to my eye the metals gain a burnished and rubbed finish as the years go by.
When looking back to aluminum, I have to admit that two aluminum crankarms failed on me as well. One was pretty danged old, failed exactly as aluminum tends to - minor warning cracks (which I did not notice), followed by immediate separation. That was the most dangerous example, as I went down reasonably quickly with vehicular traffic behind me. The other was sub-spec material, as I’ve rehashed to death at this point.
All of that strangely points me back to steel. On a set of cranks. Which is about as common in the current market as…well… a set of steel cranks.
What it could let you do, is work with some of the newer, lighter steels, have something which takes impacts well, fails in a slow manner and could look really nice. The only downside would be that they require plating for that snazzy shiny silver look that aluminum does so well. As I poked around the inerwebs, muttering about this and the kids on my lawn, I came across something that fit the bill - 
I found this image on Greg Terzian’s blog, with some really interesting historical information. First, these “Redline” Flight cranks were made by…Sugino. Second, as Greg states, “the Sugino 400 drive arm had a 110BCD five-bolt aluminum spider permanently installed.” And, the sharp-eyed among you have already noticed, it’s designed for a traditional square-taper bottom bracket. As his writings mention, these are of course highly coveted by collectors, who probably wouldn’t think of slapping ‘em on a bike and actually using them.
But, if I had some, I’d run ‘em…
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