Keri's Motobecane, Part 1

     My girlfriend Keri never really had a bicycle of her own as an adult until we moved to Tucson, Arizona.  Within a few weeks of relocating to the famously bicycle-friendly city, we snagged her a good deal off of Craigslist:  an old Motobecane mixte frame from the early '70's for only $75.  Someone along the line had converted the original ten-speed into a single-speed, thankfully keeping the original five-speed freewheel and just mounting the chain on the middle cog.  The bike also sported "chop n' flop" bullhorn bars, wrapped in bright pink tape and equipped with older, slightly odd mountain bike brake levers.  With plans to eventually return a derailleur to the bike to grant it gears, we bought it and Keri has greatly enjoyed the bike since then.

Keri and I on the Rillito River Path the day we bought it.  April 16, 2012

     One of the difficult things about buying a really old bike off of Craigslist is that it can sometimes be a real pain in the butt to get any information about the bicycle.  Things like what year, model, or sometimes even brand can be difficult to ascertain without a little luck or direction.  Keri's Motobecane doesn't say anywhere on the frame what model it is, and after a handful of somewhat impatient Google searches, I've discovered that most old Motobecane serial numbers hold no real information and are essentially a random array of numbers.  I was able to find some scans of old Motobecane catalogs from the early '70's though, and the bike is, by my best guess, a Grand Touring mixte frame from somewhere around 1972 or 1973.  While I feel very confident on its status as a Grand Touring, the year is honestly mostly a shot in the dark.  But it works for me.

     While Keri's bike is a means of transportation and a way to have fun for her, to me it is a fixer-upper.  I saw a lot I could do with the bike, and was excited at the prospect of customizing it to her desires.  Unfortunately, the cost of doing this has been beyond our budget for several months.  But in early November we decided to pull some funds together and get her bike one step toward her goal:  a fully equipped and fully geared commuters bike.

     But before this recent project, we did upgrade some parts of her bike:  namely the saddle and pedals.  The saddle that came with the bike was a ratty old Specialized saddle, probably from the late '90's or early 2000's by my best guess.  It wasn't very comfortable and looked awful, both as a saddle individually and on the bike itself.  After I told her that we could get cheap, colored saddles from Origin-8, we got her a bright pink Road Pro saddle.  The pedals that came with the bike were also some no-name old quill-style road pedals.  Keri was not a fan of them at all, especially with their nature of having to flip them to the appropriate side, so we got her some platform pedals.  Only normal platform pedals wouldn't cut it, so we went with the Odyssey Twisted PC pedals, in a lovely "grape" plastic color.  After the saddle and pedals came in, Keri was worried her bike was too colorful, but instead I feel it gives her bike some personality.

The Odyssey Twisted PC pedals and Origin-8 Road Pro saddle.  November 28, 2012

     The real fun starts here however.  Someone who had owned the bike before us (I don't believe it was the person we purchased it from) had given the bike "chop 'n flop" bullhorn handlebars.  "Chop 'n flop" is a common practice to get fully functional bullhorn handlebars by cutting most of the drops off of a standard drop-bar handlebar and flipping it upside down in the stem.  If done correctly, and it isn't that hard to do so, someone can get a set of admittedly narrow bullhorns.  I had actually done this on a bike I previously owned, and discovered my affinity for bullhorn handlebars.  Unfortunately, bullhorns are currently "claimed" by the hipsters and their fixed-gear bicycles, and I couldn't stand to equip my Fuji with bullhorns as I am trying to maintain the original aesthetic of the bike.  But, Keri liked her bullhorns quite a bit.  The problem was her brake levers:  to put it simply, they were not the ideal setup for bullhorn handlebars.

Note the cramped area between the brake levers.  This is not what we wanted.  November 7, 2012

     Bullhorn handlebars can essentially run with two style of brake levers:  cross levers, and tri levers.  Cross levers are, hence the name, usually found on cyclo-cross bikes (and touring bikes, in my experience) and serve the role as a secondary brake lever, mounted on the flat section of drop bars near the stem.  I call them interrupter levers, because they essentially interrupt the brake line and allow for a safe, secondary hand position.  They tend to be small and simple in design, and because of this, they tend to be the perfect brake lever for bullhorns.  Tri levers are somewhat similar to the traditional drop levers found on drop bars, except they mount in the upturned ends of the bullhorns and angle down.  As suggested by the name, they tend to be found on triathlon bikes, which tend to have bullhorn or aero handlebars.

An example of cross levers on a bare handlebar.  Taken from Google Image Search.

     The problem stemmed from the fact that Keri's brakes were tough to use; they required more force to pull than she was comfortable with.  Combine that with the fact that her brake pads were more than likely circa 1972 and barely functional, and you have a bike that is less safe than any sensible guy wants his girlfriend to ride.  So our project revolved around getting her better brakes and a better cockpit, or handlebars and controls.

An example of tri levers, installed into the ends of a set of bullhorn handlebars.  Taken from Google Image Search.

     Tri levers were out of the question for us because they tend to be expensive and high-performance, being associated with triathlons.  They also tend to work best with true bullhorn handlebars, not the "ghetto chop 'n flop" that Keri had.  Cross levers would have been a viable option, but there were two reasons that we ended up going with a set of old drop levers that I already owned:  we didn't have to buy them, and it would stay true to the aesthetic of the bike.

     Being a professional bike mechanic, I put a lot of new parts on a lot of bikes, and most of the time I do not put a lot of worry into maintaining any aesthetics.  My job mostly revolves around maintaining and building performance, so that a machine runs the best it can.  But my job, my current job as a mechanic at REI, has me dealing with modern bikes a lot more than my previous one.  I don't much care about how modern bikes look, they are all mass produced in Asia, which is fine, and aesthetically they are all incredibly similar.  Its in older bikes that I feel there there is something aesthetically to maintain.  And the older a bike is, the stronger I feel that is important.  I wasn't going to put a pair of SRAM TT 500 tri levers on a 1972 Motobecane, especially when I'd have to look at it everyday.

The "flop 'n chop" bullhorn bars previously on her bike.  November 7, 2012

     And so we decided to swap out her "chop 'n flop" bullhorn handlebars with a set of true drop bars, and equip her with proper drop levers.  I had a set of Dia-Compe C250G drop levers that I had taken off of one of my bikes.  They were in fine condition, barring slightly worn hoods.  The only other thing we needed were a set of drop bars.

     I have a set of drop bars that I acquired off of some bike... I can't really recall which one now.  But, there was a problem.  Being a Motobecane from the early '70's, the bike was made in France and uses some French standards--sizes that really don't appear elsewhere in the bike world.  The problem here was in the handlebars:  their clamp diameter was 25.0mm.  The "standard" found in most bikes of this style is 25.4mm, indeed the size of my extra pair of bars.  Although it is only 0.4 of a millimeter, it is enough to create an issue.  Even if I were to tighten the clamp bolt as tight as I could, the bars would still be able to slip, and that is not acceptable.  We had two options:  new handlebars, or a new stem.  We could get a new stem, but any modern stems wouldn't have the same aesthetic.  So we turned to eBay to find a size that doesn't exist anymore...

The vintage Motobecane drop bars we secured for Keri from eBay.  November 7, 2012

     A few trips to eBay yielded a terrific find:  a set of vintage Motobecane drop bars in the proper size, for a measly $25!  As we waited for the new bars to arrive, I had one last obstacle to tackle, the brake calipers themselves.  Center-pull dual pivot Weinmann calipers are one of my less favorite brake options out there, due mostly to the moderate difficulty it takes to set them up.  Instead of using the simple pinch-bolt that modern side-pull dual pivot brake calipers use, the older center-pull style uses a "yoke hanger", secured to the brake line, which supports and pulls on a smaller cable attached to the opposite ends of each arm of the brake caliper.  The problem I have with this design is that it is very difficult to adjust, you have to essentially eyeball where to secure the "yoke hanger" and then proceed to use trial and error to find the appropriate position.  With the proper tool--one that Park apparently doesn't make anymore--you can easily hold the calipers shut and it makes the job much easier, but we do not have this tool at work.

Keri's front brake.  Note the "yoke hanger" supporting the cable between the arms of the caliper.  November 7, 2012

     Aside from my disdain for this design, I was also looking for new calipers because I was wanting to someday upgrade Keri's wheel-set into a modern 700c wheel size; she is currently sporting the obsolete 27" size.  700c wheels are slightly smaller than 27" wheels, yet close enough that some brake calipers out there can actually work with either size.  These "long reach" calipers are what I put on my Fuji, because I did the exact same thing.  However, I soon discovered that Tektro doesn't make the calipers I bought anymore.  They still make a product that would work, but they are double the price of the ones I have now, and it is simply out of our price range.  I spent a lot of time trying on different calipers and trying to figure out which ones would work; aside from the reach of the brake arm, I also had to consider that her bike would need the "standard nut" mounting style instead of the "recessed nut" mounting style found on modern road bike frames. Eventually I decided that we would just keep her current brake calipers.  There was nothing wrong with them, and I could put them through the parts cleaner to hopefully shine them up some.  Keeping 27" wheels wasn't a big deal either, and would, once again, maintain the aesthetic.

Left:  the brake calipers before cleaning.  Right:  after cleaning.  Note the different brake pads as well.  November 7, 2012

     The one thing we could do to get definitively better braking power was swapping out the brake pads.  The original pads were old, hard, and had little stopping power left in them.  I ordered her two pairs of Sunlite's Road Brake Pads.  They are a good price for what they are, and they come with an extra pair of replaceable brake shoes.

The new pads are on the left, the old pads on the right.  A huge improvement in such a small yet important part.  November 7, 2012

     Finally, everything was in place to overhaul her bike.  That morning when I went to roll her bike out the door, however, I noticed how sticky and stiff her headset was.  Later that day when I was working on everything, I decided it best to break it open and inspect the cups and races for damage.  If a headset is too tight, the bearings can eventually pit the cups or races, damaging the surfaces in an irreparable way.  In spite of my fear that her headset was damaged, it ended up being in perfect condition, suffering only from old, gummy grease.  I cleaned and repacked everything, and the headset actually turned out perfect.  I think more than anything it shows what quality products will get you:  they're easy to work on and you get a perfect product in the end.  It slides like butter now, a marked improvement.

Left:  the finished headset overhaul.  Right:  various segments of the pre-cleaned  nastiness.  November 7, 2012

     The icing on the cake ended up being the bar tape.  The bike came to us with a slightly dirty yet still vibrant, deep pink tape, wound tightly and thickly.  Wanting to maintain the blue, pink and purple color scheme, we ended up getting her pink Origin-8 Cork Handlebar Tape.  Finally, her bike was finished, and she is very happy with it.

The finished product, in all of its pink glory.  November 28, 2012

     The next project will be giving her gears again, reintroducing a rear derailleur and shifter.  That will not be a huge project, but will require some cash.  Until then, she is happy with her delightfully pink Motobecane.

The awesome head badge.  They don't make them like this anymore.  November 7, 2012

To be Handed Satisfaction

     I had hoped to get around to working on my father's bike by now, but the sad fact is that I currently lack the funds to procure even the most basic and essential of the parts that I would need for the project.  Additionally, since I would have to perform this project at my place of work, but on my own time, I want to wrap it all up in one fell swoop, so that I am not leaving anything lingering where it should not be.  Hopefully I can start this soon, but in the meantime I guess I want to discuss where I come from.

     I have an immense urge to work with my hands.  It sadly took me nearly twenty-one years to realize this, and to begin nurturing it.  I wasn't especially unaware of this part of my personality; growing up, some of my favorite "toys" were Lego, K'nex, and even a more obscure set called Construx.  I loved building anything I could imagine, be it space ships, tractors, or even a working fishing pole.  When I got a little older, my fascination graduated to a more real-world application and I became extremely interested in woodworking tools.  Yet I soon discovered that being into woodworking wasn't very well accepted or understood by my peers in junior high school, and in my desperate struggle to "fit in", I abandoned it.  It really wouldn't be until I was hired as a bike mechanic in 2010 that I would begin rebuilding the deeply satisfying gift that I know I have.

Towards the end of my tenure at Ike's Bikes as a bicycle mechanic.  August 10, 2011

     It is easy to take for granted.  All too often I find myself completely expecting someone to know how to hold a tool the right way, or to know how a simple mechanism works.  And I feel I am usually surprised by how wrong my assumptions are.  Not that I hold it against these people; they are almost always much more adept at what I'll call "real world" skills, such as communicating with people effectively and balancing check books.  These are things I am rather lacking in.  It truly takes all kinds.  But it is usually in these times that I get a glimpse of the fact that I possess something a lot of people don't really have, a skill-set that allows me to help others where they cannot help themselves.  I take great satisfaction from practicing that.

     But I feel this talent is beginning to hunger.  For just about two years now, I have repaired and assembled bicycles, and I find it quite satisfying on most levels.  Despite this, I find myself wanting to do more with bikes.  I've built one bicycle from the ground up for a friend, and I greatly enjoyed the process.  Figuring out which components to use, and essentially calling all or most of the shots in turning a frame into a complete bicycle to roll on the road gave me a tremendous joy.  I would really love to do it more often.  But I still feel I could do more.  And so I've started to look into frame building.  A monumental undertaking for someone such as myself, certainly, but I feel an unusual amount of confidence.  I know it'll be a challenge, and it may even put me down once or twice, but I know I'll be able to pull it off.  It's in my blood.

The book I purchased to learn about frame building.

     To stay at least a little in tune with the very general and loose tone of this blog being a reflection of my father and his impact on my life through bicycles, I'll just briefly touch on some of my father's several skills.  He learned to weld so young that by the time he was in high school, he actually helped teach the shop class concerning welding, or so my memory of a story told to me goes.  He turned a motorcycle frame into a four wheeler, helped construct a homemade dump truck that my grandfather still uses, and even created an improvised grader blade and plow from scrap metal for our tractor when we lived in upstate New York.  He  was a self-taught machinist, being very skilled with a manual lathe and milling machine, both of which are dying rapidly in machine shops.  After my parent's bike shop was closed, he found work in a small machine shop and quickly became known there as one of the best users of a manual lathe.  For those who aren't aware, manual machining is obviously not computer-controlled, which has been dominating the field for some time now.  Manual machines require the machinist to use several dials to control the cutting tool, usually an ultra-hard piece of tungsten carbide, to cut a block or cylinder of metal down to measurements that are specific to a thousandth of an inch.  While not impossibly difficult, to be able to translate a mechanical drawing into a series of dial turns to shape a block of aluminum into a complicated shape is no small task.  To be able to do it well and efficiently takes talent, a talent my dad had no short supply of.

     He also restored multiple vehicles, including a 1968 military Dodge Powerwagon, in which he eventually installed a dump-truck assembly, and a beautiful 1966 Mercedes 200D my family owned in the mid 1990's.  When my mom tried her hand at making homemade soap and selling it, my dad designed and built all of her equipment from scratch.  This included a collapse-able mold, a frame to support her large mixing cauldron, and a soap cutting machine that used piano wire to slice the blocks of soap into standardized bars.  These were perhaps some of his greater challenges, simply because he had nothing to really base these machines from, unlike most of his mechanical endeavors.  Although he never had more than a high school education, my dad could sufficiently engineer when the need arose.

The 1966 Mercedes 200D, before and after.  All done by himself.  Date unknown, sometime in the  mid '90's

The homemade four-wheeler.  Date unknown, possibly 1987

My dad's Warner Smasey lathe.  Could you operate it?  Date unknown, sometime in the mid 2000's

     In additional to working with metal, his preferred medium, my father also enjoyed working with wood.  He helped build my family's first house and almost single-handedly built my family's last house.  When we lived in an over-a-century old farmhouse in New York, he took it upon himself to completely restore the upstairs, which hadn't been touched since the 1930's.  One of his great joys in the final years of his life was a log cabin he built by himself in my family's woods.  He briefly attempted to sell rustic "Adirondack" furniture in 2000 and 2001.  His final business endeavor was carving walking sticks, usually into the likeness of his beloved morel mushrooms, which he "hunted" every spring.  When you see how incredibly detailed and similar his wood carvings look, especially when compared with other people's attempts, I think you will get a glimpse of his innate talent for working with his hands.  His talent was, by leaps and bounds, far beyond my own.  This could even be said of my dad when he was my age, twenty-three.  He was twenty-one when he helped build his first house.  I was just beginning to work on  bicycles at that age.  For reasons that I think I understand, but still surprise me, I feel a great urge to follow in his footsteps, to learn the trades he knew so that I can make him proud.  I have long stride to fill, but I know one thing:  I may be far behind, but I'm on the right trail behind him.

One of my dad's morel walking sticks.  Background unknown.  October 15, 2011

My dad and his cabin, mid-construction.  Without a doubt his favorite creation.  Date unknown, late 2009

Fixing Up Dad's Bike, Part 1

     My father passed unexpectedly on August 2, 2012 in a car accident.  One of the possessions he left behind was his mountain bike, so I naturally claimed it as a memento.  He built it up sometime in the mid 2000's, a from-scratch update of his by-then ancient racing mountain bike.  An avid mountain biker for most of his adult life, my father had an amateur racing career of twenty years.  He wasn't the best but he wasn't the worst either.  He usually placed somewhere in the middle to upper-middle of the roster, occasionally earning one of the top positions, and outright winning from time to time.  I spent a lot of time at bike races in my younger years, watching both or one of my parents compete in the thriving mountain bike community of western North Carolina.  For three years my parents owned and operated a small bike shop, centered around mountain bikes, in Brevard, North Carolina during the early 1990's.  To say my childhood was bike-centric would be an understatement.

My dad sometime in the '90's.  Date unknown

     Now behind me, leaning against my two road bikes and my girlfriend Keri's single-speed, is the bike that became my father's last.  After his passing, I asked my friend and former manager in Indiana to box it up for me, and my family shipped it out to me in Tucson.  While reassembling it, I realized both how dirty and neglected the bike had become.  It was clear to me that in the last few years of my dad's life, his attention had shifted away from what had been one of his many passions.  I don't doubt this is a powerful indication of the internal and external struggles my dad was dealing with from day to day.  Making ends meet and staying happy hold precedence over maintaining a bicycle.

My dad and his last bike, posing on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Date unknown

     So I decided to take it upon myself to both clean and fix up my dad's mountain bike.  I'm also going to slightly alter the bike to fit me, both in size and preference.  It meant a lot to him, and I know he would love nothing more than to have me clean his bike.  He always had a thing about cleaning up vehicles.  I remember his words from one of the times he made me clean my motorcycle:  "Always take pride in your things, clean them up and make them look nice."

     I'm going to start by stripping everything off of the frame, even the bottom bracket and headset, so that I can hand clean and polish the frame.  I'll then begin reassembling the rest of the bike.  One of the issues I noticed while reassembling the bike was that my dad let his chain stretch much more than, well, he should have let it.  It easily went to the 1.0 mark on the chain gauge at work, not exactly a good thing.  I recall, a few years ago by now, mentioning chain stretch to my dad.  He knew about it, but his response was that he was just going to go until the chain broke, and then get a whole new drive-train.  It didn't really make sense to me, and now I'll be the one buying the new drive-train.

     For those unfamiliar with chain stretch, it is one of those things that simply goes along with riding a bike, much like the inevitable flat tire.  Because bicycle chains are comprised of several tiny, interlocked metal plates and pins, over time the chain will begin to stretch and weaken.  This in and of itself wouldn't be a huge deal, but as a stretched chain runs over the cogs of the freewheel or cassette on the rear wheel it will slowly deform the teeth of that cog.  If a rider lets it go for too long, that cog will be married to that chain, in that when a new chain is put to that deformed cog, the chain will not "fit", slipping forward and rendering the bike unreliable and essentially unfit to ride.  To prevent that, we bike mechanics and prudent riders check chain stretch with a chain gauge.  A reading of anything less than 0.75 means the cogs are safe from being deformed.  Anything over 0.75 means the cogs are in danger of being deformed if they haven't already been.  Nine and ten-speed drive-trains are especially vulnerable to chain stretch, as the thinner chains to accommodate so many gears in the rear cluster naturally stretch faster.

     My dad's nine-speed drive-train is going to more than likely need to be replaced.  I'm going to try and replace the parts the best I can, although I will probably have to settle for parts of lesser quality due to money.  The bike as it stands now is already out of my typical price range by a long shot.

The bike after the 9th Annual "Swank 65" race in North Carolina, one of the dad's more pride-inspiring achievements.  Fall 2007

     The two parts I absolutely will change at this point are the seatpost and pedals.  I'm going to swap out the SPD-style clipless pedals for a nice pair of aluminum bodied platform pedals.  Besides having no experience with clipless systems, I also have no interest in pursuing them.  My old mountain bike had aluminum platform pedals and I loved them.

     The seatpost, despite being a Thomson Elite post, is the only absolutely necessary part to replace.  It seems that the seatpost, which was probably officially spec'ed at 26.8mm, is actually somewhere around 26.9mm.  The seat tube of the frame needs a 26.8mm seatpost, and so my dad's apparent solution was to turn down a portion of the seatpost on one of his lathes so that it would fit.  The problem is that he only turned enough of the post down to fit his height of 6'5".  I measure in at somewhere around 6'2", and although I can manage to ride the bike for short periods of time, it simply won't do for any prolonged riding.  So, I will have to purchase an appropriately sized seat post.  Again, I'm going to try and match the quality as best I can.  I intend to keep my dad's giant seat post, simply as a reminder of just how tall he was.  It really gives you a good idea when you try to ride the bike.

The ridiculously high saddle--a lifelong characteristic of my dad's bikes.  Taken in my apartment

See, way more seat post than you almost ever see on a bicycle.  Even in the early '90's.  According to my mom, this was taken right after a race at Camp Carolina in Brevard.  The day was so rainy you could barely see, and my dad was filthy by the end of it.  He rode the bike home, refusing to get the car's seats dirty.  Luckily, we didn't live that far away from Camp Carolina.  Probably 1993

     At this point, there is actually one thing I've done to the bike... the other glaringly obvious sign of negligence were my dad's brake pads.  The shoes were worn down to wafer-thin strips of rubber, and I felt it appropriate to replace the shoes with new ones for my night time ride home on the bike after reassembling it.  I can't help but wonder why my dad neglected to replace his brake pads, the rear pair in particular were especially worn.

The worn brake shoes.  Taken in my apartment

A hair over 1mm of rubber left before it would have been destroyed.  Taken in my apartment

     For the time being, that is all I will replace.  My goal is to keep the bike as close as I can to how my dad had it, while making it rideable and enjoyable for me.  I know he'd be proud of me turning something of his into a project.

     Finally, for those interested, the current spec sheet of whats on the bike, by my best reckoning:

• Frame:  Quintana Roo "Panamint"
• Fork:  Rock Shox "Indy SL"
• Headset:  Race Face "Real Seal"
• Headset spacer:  Homemade aluminum spacer
• Stem:  Easton "EA70"
• Handlebars:  Easton "Monkey Lite XC"
• Shifters:  Shimano "XTR"
• Brake levers:  Shimano "Deore XT"
• Brakes:  Shimano "Deore XT"
• Rims:  Ritchey "Girder OCR"
• Hubs:  Ritchey
• Tires:  Kenda "Kinetics"
• Crankset:  Shimano "Deore XT"
• Front derailleur:  Shimano "XTR"
• Rear derailleur:  Shimano "XTR"
• Seatpost:  Thomson Elite
• Saddle:  Bontrager "Race-Lite"
• Seatpost clamp:  Salsa
• Bell:  Incredi-bell, given by me for his 47th birthday so he could ring people out of his way on the bike trail

The Incredi-bell adorning his otherwise badass mountain bike.  Love you dad.