Senior Pictures

I picked up my new Elephant from Glen about 5 months ago. Ever since, I've been trying to figure out exactly what it is and how to use it. Thing is, it takes me a long time to figure out the personality of my bikes (like up to a year or two) and now that I have the ability to seriously screw up a really good bike with a totally stupid rack, it just takes that much longer.

I only have about 500 miles on it, but never has a bike been through such a rigorous "getting to know you" phase, which has included but is not limited to: a loaded, beat-down, jarring solo trip into the Cd'A NF, a whole different kind of abuse on the Midnight Century, and the urban adventure of seven carless days.

Rack-wise, I equipped it with hastily-built rear and front racks. Then I messed with them and messed with them some more, and more after that.

All the experimentation's been fun and educational, but for a while now I've been feeling a need for some closure. I'm a long way from figuring the bike out, or it me, and things will change for sure, but there's some shit I've definitely learned and feel good about and so I'm settling on that for now and then I'll go from there at some point in the future.

Over the last several weeks, I pushed myself to make some decisions on rack design, get them finished up, and then powder coated. After all that, here's what I finally brought home.


The rack bits along with the recent Frame Saver tear-down left me with this pile o' parts. I think there's a bike in there somewhere:


These days, sunlight is in short supply and my lame camera takes shitty pictures in the shadows of my shop. Which is okay for most stuff, but when you finish a major project, you wanna do it justice, and so I was waiting for today to take it down to Manito Park and take some fun pics under natural light amidst the fine scenery. Last time I did this, Patty laughed her ass off. "You're taking senior pictures of your bike!"

It's pointless to try and refute her assessment. I'm a nerd and I have no case. But they're really good senior pictures . . .


The Velo Orange fenders have been pretty good, quality-wise. I decided to have them powder-coated the same color as the bike, which for a guy who's much more comfortable blending in than standing out was a pretty bold move. The only thing about them that drove me crazy was that the fit between the stay and the eyelet bolt was super sloppy. The stays wouldn't stay put and rattled around.


I fixed it, though.


The front rack came out great. Everything's square and true and the size is appropriate for the bike. It's really not the right machine for hauling a big load above the front wheel.


The fender attachment at the front helps stiffen the fender big-time.


I added a loop at the top and a hook-thingy at the bottom for storing mini-bungees.


All this busy-ness is about mounting the light and battery.


Hopefully this explains it.


The rear rack, on the other hand, is a mess. Nothing on it is square or symmetrical. But it's functional and the powder coating smoke-screens the flaws.


More storage for bungees.


This is the u-lock holster. It's designed to accommodate multiple lock sizes.


Larry commented on a previous post with the idea of using a "broccoli rubber band" to secure the lock to the rack. I adopted his idea, although I ended up using a hacked bungee instead of a rubber band. The lock is super solid in the holster.


Showing you my pictures was sooooo fun. Can I, like, sign your yearbook?

Beautiful On The Inside

Steel rusts. It's a fact, Mac.

I've known what needs to be done and yes, I've been procrastinating. But a coupla lately middle-of-the-night half-awake-half-asleep dream panic attacks about rust-induced separation of my Elephant's downtube from it's headtube during a high speed descent compelled me into action.

As is the case with steel frames, my Elephant came with a tough, corrosion-resistant finish on the outside, but nothing to protect the vulnerable insides. While there are other treatments, the gold standard for protecting the internal surfaces of a steel frame is J.P. Weigle's Frame Saver. It comes in a little can like this:



I've had shops apply this product to my frames before, but I'd never done it myself, and in a moment of exceedingly bad judgement, I decided I needed to experience the joy of this process for myself. Holy hell.

The bike was pretty dirty, so first thing I did was to give it a crazy-serious bath. Outside, with a hose and bucket. In November. Yay. (Yes, I even individually washed every spoke.) Thinking being that if I was gonna tear it apart, I'd like the parts to be as clean as possible. (Second moment of bad judgement and super huge waste of time, as far as thinking I was gonna keep things clean.)

Anyhoo. Clean bike, let the teardown begin . . .



And continue . . .



And continue . . .



Until it's just the frame at which point you would normally stop, but since this bike has couplings, you take it a step further . . .



Because that will make your job so much easier because you can just spray Frame Saver into the open ends . . .



. . . which would be wrong.



So once you have your bike stripped totally down, you can start spraying Frame Saver into the insides of all the tubes and rolling the frame around so that the puddle eventually wets all the surfaces. Here's a shot of the head tube, with a puddle on the bottom, so that you can see what this nasty, yet wonderous shit looks like . . .



One can is supposed to be enough for 3-5 frames, but I burnt the whole thing down on just one bike. Thinking being that after all the the work to tear it down and build it back up, no way was I going skinny on a $12 can of juice. I applied two generous coats, 24 hours apart, to give the the first coat time to, umm, "set up", as they say. Like many things in life, I think this is one of those that if you can't do it to excess, why even bother.

Only downside to that theory is that there's only so much juice your frame can suck up and the rest of it runs out the vent holes all over the outside of the bike and down your arms and sleeves as you're trying to rotate the frame around so that you get every square millimeter of the inside of your tubes covered and a lot of this motion is disco-ish, complete with some low and high moves, sans music, and there's no way to avoid becoming a super spaz outside in the moonlight on a cold night which is where you've moved so that you don't dump this smelly, toxic shit all over everything in your shop, all the while with your neighbors looking out their windows, bewildered and maybe a little scared of the latest episode of bike weirdness from next door.

At least that was my experience.

What I didn't absorb into my clothes and skin, I sopped up with paper towels.



With the frame finally all coated, last thing I did was to drill a hole in the bottom bracket so that if water does get inside the frame, it has a way to drain out at this low point. (Of course I got Glen's blessing. Don't be ridiculous.)



I'm sure there are tons of tricks to applying Frame Saver. Unfortunately, I don't know any of them yet. What I do know is that this frame is seriously protected from internal rust. So then. Good. I feel way better now.

Making Sense of Schwalbe's Site

SmartGuard!
TravelGuard!
RaceGuard!
KevlarGuard!
LiteSkin!
SnakeSkin + High Density Ceramic Guard = Double Defense!!!

These are all marketing terms that Schwalbe enthusiastically uses to describe various flat protection technologies used in their tires. What does any of it mean and how do the different technologies compare relative to one another? Well, let's have a look . . .

The description for the Marathon Plus reads as follows:

"Punctures become obsolete with the MARATHON PLUS! The SmartGuard layer made from a flexible, special rubber offers particular resistance to shards of glass and flints. Even a thumbtack cannot penetrate this protective layer."

Even a THUMBTACK. No way!

Oh, and just so you don't get the idea that this super-razoo flat protection comes at a price, they add that, "The SmartGuard belt does not increase rolling resistance. The MARATHON PLUS rolls as easily as a tire without protection." And here they say, "The approximate 200 gram extra weight compared with the 'classic' Marathon is hardly noticeable in everyday use".

So weight doesn't really matter. Cool. The Marathon Plus in 700 x 28c weighs 740 grams, by the way. Sounds like a great tire.

By comparison, the description for the Marathon Extreme reads like this:

"Only by riding can the easy rolling ability of the Marathon Extreme be experienced. The light, yet at the same time, solid construction is made possible by the all-around SnakeSkin fabric layer. The HighDensity belt protects against punctures and is made even more efficient in this latest version with the addition of ceramic coating. SnakeSkin + HD Ceramic Guard = Double Defense"

Hmmm. Sounds pretty great. Thumbtacks? Dunno. 490 grams in 700 x 35c.

The description for the Marathon Supreme, on the other hand, reads differently yet kind of the same:

"Exceptional. Outstanding. The best. A touring tire that can do everything. That was the goal of our development team. For 2009 we have completely revised our : HD Ceramic Guard, Triple Nano Compound, LiteSkin side wall. The Marathon Supreme is now even lighter and faster. Puncture resistance has also been improved and its grip on wet roads remains outstanding!"

Wow, what a great tire. I'm a little suspicious about how it might handle thumbtacks, though. 375 grams in 700 x 32c.

So there you have it, the different flat protection systems just offer different levels of flat protection greatness. Clear as mud.

But before you get the wrong idea, let me say that even though I poke fun at their site, I really like Schwable tires. My observations came about as I was recently trying to use their site to select a tire with the minimum amount of flat protection, something akin to the Panaracer Pasela. Why not the Pasela? Well, because I'm really into the reflective sidewall that comes on almost all Schwalbes and also, I guess I just wanna try something different.

I settled on the Marathon Racer.



The description says it all:

"The fastest Marathon ever. Again! Now even lighter. Now even faster. Pure skin side walls and the new Speedgrip compound have further reduced weight and rolling resistance. Everything is optimized for speed. Pure dynamics: the low weight is noticeable every time you pull away. A RaceGuard belt protects against punctures."

Weight a minute. So wait does matter? I'm confused. No matter, though, it's obviously a super great tire. 330 grams for a 700 x 35c.



When I finally got my hands on it, the tire was nice and flimsy as I hoped it would be. The last thing I want out of this particular tire is a stiff-as-a-brick construction. A side-by-side "feel" test with a Pasela revealed that it's not quite as supple, but in the same neighborhood.



My bike's in a million pieces right now, so it'll be a while before I can test these tires out, but I'm guessing they'll ride like one of Schwalbe's greatest tires.

Shop Night

I've dabbled in and enjoyed racing and fast group rides. At my core, though, I really love bikes that help with the job of living life. A little over a year ago, I got really fascinated with custom rack building and John put me in touch with Alex, who graciously spent an afternoon showing me the basics. In Seattle, where he lives.

I booked it back to Spokane all wound up and with just enough confidence and skill to make me really dangerous. I spent many, many hours and late nights over last fall, winter and spring screwing stuff up but also figuring out the equipment and technique fundamentals, and building some fun and satisfying racks in the process. Which was the first part of the goal and which set the stage for the second.

John and I were inspired by how Alex has enabled so many people around him to get involved with building racks and we shared the idea of really just wanting to import this skillset and some form of Alex's model into the Spokane area and hopefully figure out a way to get some local-built custom racks out on the road. This fall has been the time to take that first step.

I've set up my shop with a couple of workstations and it happens once a week and we're figuring it out as we go. That's John in the foreground and Ryan in the background. It's hard to take a bad picure when there's fire involved.



I'm a natural do-er, not a natural teacher and so maybe the biggest obstacle these dudes face is my meddling. If you understand and acknowledge the problem (which I do) you can do something about it, and the solution so far is for me to take on a non-bikey task in the general, but not-too-close vicinity of the rack building epicenter. That way I am available to answer questions, but occupied enough with my own stuff that I'm not hovering and pecking like the mother of all hens. Tonight I wired in some outlets and lights in my shed.





Which left these guys free to make tracks on their projects. They're both presently building porteur racks. These are struts that Ryan has put together.



Here's the project box where they store stuff in-process from week to week. Very much reminiscent of junior high metal shop, except that the projects are way more bikey exciting. That's John's medium-duty rack deck (for his Elephant) on top and Ryan's heavy-duty deck (for his Kogswell) just below.



I have no idea how any of this will evolve, but for right now, shop night is new and cool. Seeing these racks come together is just rad.

Word, Curd, or Turd (Vol. 1)

I always see other people review shit on their bike blogs and then I think hey, there's some shit I'm definitely gonna review. But then I come to realize that it takes a certain amount of initiative to do a proper one and I guess the proof is in the pudding.

But I do have a blog, which entitles and mandates me to tell you what I'm thinking all the time, not like in a twitter way which I could never do, but maybe in a ground-breaking new format that I'm sure a hundred bazillion social networkers have never ever dreamt about in their wildest imagination. I'm calling it Word, Curd, or Turd. Word and turd are pretty self-explanatory. Curd: think cottage cheese. Good enough stuff, but has it ever inspired you.

Let's begin.

Any seatpost or stem with this name on it . . . Word.


This is rack-building minutia (shop cloth, aka emery cloth), but it occupies thousands of hours of my time so I must speak. The blue stuff on top, Turd. The replacement stuff in the box, supposedly made in Germany, WORD.


I like to wear stretchy padded bikey underwear to hold things in place and then wear regularish pants over the top. In that category:


Speedo meets velo. Holy hell. Dorko padding, dorko fabric, dorko cut. Let's round up every last pair and ship them to Europe where they can actually use them. Super turd.

By contrast, heaven on earth:


High-waisted and girdle-ish, lovely pads, comfortable enough fabric to wear all day, super dreamy in every sense. $30-ish. I couldn't wait to get down to REI and buy a second, back-up pair, which I happened to do on the occasion of a sale, at which time they were $22-ish. Word squared.

On the subject of tires, yeah, they're super tough and all, but way too flinstoney for me. Yabba-dabba-doo. Petrified, slow, turd-like.


The Novation dynohub (budget dynohub category) is curd. Works alright, but dopey connector, lots of drag, boring to look at . . .


The Sanyo dynohub OTOH (budget dynohub category) is word, bro. Low drag, sweet lines/finish, rad connector . . .


Lastly, REI Mistral pants. The Schoeller fabric version, which they don't sell anymore, so which is therefore probably contributing to my my opinion by way of nostalgia, but they are word, word, word, word, word.



So with that, Vol 1 is in the books. I think you are starting to get the sense of how popular this new feature could become. Until Vol 2, then. Curd out.

What's Cookin'?

Last night, Patty came home to find me baking. This almost never happens and she'd have been so delighted if I'd been in the process of creating something edible, but instead I was cooking the water out of a rack. (Just trying to be more efficient.) 'Flipped out' would be way too strong a term, but somewhere between that and "what the hell is that doing in my oven" would be where her reaction touched down.

I'm not quite sure what the big deal is. (By you're reaction, I can tell that you're not quite sure how I've managed to stay married this long. You may have a point.)



I'd like to change the subject now.

My Elephant's been needing a new set of everyday wheels ever since I brought it home. At that particular time, I was all crazy obsessed with some upcoming overnighters and I had Dave at Two Wheel build up some super heavy duty wheels to go camping with. He did an awesome job and they're awesome wheels and they're gonna see lots more duty.

But I also want this fine, fast-ish bike to remain fast-ish for my around-town stuff which is mostly the way I'll use it, so I've known the time was coming for a set of fast-ish, strong-ish wheels, and despite the fact that my 2010 bike budget was long ago blown to hell, it was time to act. They say you can't take it with you and I'm making sure I don't have the option.

My LBS dollars are meager but I do like to spread them around and I asked David at NDBS to build this latest wheelset. There were some problems getting the components and so the process took far longer than either of us anticipated, but today I finally picked them up.







I'm obviously pimping this ride way the hell out and you haven't even seen the worst of it - I dropped the first load of rack-and-fender krap off to get powder coated today. This bike's gonna hurt to look at when it's all done. And I'm not even that kind of guy. Not really sure what's gotten into me.

So if I could change the subject one more time:

Please don't forget to vote. Electing the right people into office is really, really, important. From a bike standpoint, sure, but even moreso from the way bigger picture.

What Color Is Your Nerdachute?

Couple or more days ago, my friend Alan commented on this post. He's a really creative and forward-thinking guy and his suggestion was that maybe the bike nerd color scale could be it's own thing instead of having to ride the coattails of the whole homeland security gig.

The actual statement was "Yes, the nerd alert has been raised to "orange," or, in nerd-speak: coral." Holy hell. That made instant sense and set my twisted mind reeling down a fresh new path.

Chartreuse had already been brought up because how can you have any kind of respectable color conversation without including that one, and then Andrew mentioned mauve, which, how can you argue out of the conversation, and I had already been thinking about olive.

So. Exactly how does it work?

Well, in order from least to most nerdy, it's:

olive
mauve
coral
magenta
chartreuse

I already know that coral is totally where I wanna live. Accept that I am a nerd and be a respectable middle-of-the-road-one, is my thinking. Plus, it's incredibly warm. But also recognize that I am susceptible to life on the fringe and that I will have to wage epic battles with my demons to keep from going hotter and getting weirder.

Glow-in-the-dark-chartreuse and live-in-the-shadows-olive people: you know who you are, we know who you are. This is an accepting place and we don't come here to judge. But please, don't try to bullshit us.

As for honesty as it actually applies to me, Patty's out of town this weekend which leaves me with a lot of freedom and I'm only one night in, and I'm already struggling not to peg the nerd color meter.





Coratreuse, I guess.