"Bike Obituary" Revisited

     Below is a blog post I made on July 3, 2012 from my older, now abandoned blog "The Lonesome Organ Bandit."  Titled "Bike Obituary", it recounts memories I had while riding my long-stolen Cannondale mountain bike.  Instead of typing out a fresh post about that bike here, I just copied it over.  I have edited it some, as I tend to always want to do with older pieces of my writing.  Enjoy.

On June 26, 2012, one of my most valued possessions was taken from me, cut from its braided steel tether opposite my front door and hauled off into the night.  My beloved mountain bike was stolen.  It pains me deeply, because while I still own two other bicycles, both road bikes, my mountain bike was my first full-sized bicycle and my first as an "adult", even though I was a teenager when I recieved it.  It bears many memories, and has served me faithfully over the years.  It won't be forgotten.

My former mountain bike, picture taken in 2010

I got the bike for Christmas from my dad in 2002.  It was a Cannondale F500 mountain bike, essentially a lower-end middle-point in the mountain bike spectrum.  Equipped with all of the bells and whistles of a bike from its time--Cannondale's proprietary "Headshok", grip shifters, and large climbing bars--it was a good bike for me.  However, despite spending my earliest years in a bike shop, the truth is I had no real grasp of what was in the bicycle world outside of what I overheard from my parents, and one paradigm rang loud enough for me to internalize for years afterwards:  Cannondale was the best.

First picture of the bike, Christmas Day, 2002.  Ignoring my terrible haircut and
goofy clothes I had a pretty cool bike.
Taken on December 25, 2002

Thankfully I have since been able to develop a feel for how the bike industry works and advertises itself, and no longer feel this is true.  I've even grown a slight grudge against Cannondale for the fandom that has surrounded the company and their love to push the technological envelope, sometimes when and where it is not necessary.  But at the time I formed the idea in my head that my dad spent a few thousand bucks on this brand new Cannondale.  The truth is that it retailed for $600, a generous Christmas no doubt, but far less than the number I pulled seemingly from thin air.  I was very grateful and appreciated the gift and rode it a few times in the coming spring but the sad truth is that a mountain bike is just not a terribly useful thing to have in Richmond Indiana.  I always liked to say there are no mountains to mountain bike on.  Looking back now, I know that I had other things on my mind.  The desire to mountain bike was there but buried under miles and miles of the mental gunk that can accumulate in high school.  Peer pressure is funny how it can exist even when it is denied entirely.  So the bike sat under my dad's lean-to for a few years with very little use, save for the very, very occasional bike ride with friends.

A few brief anecdotes concerning my mountain bike from this time in my life revolve around women.  Being the lovesick and very confused adolescent that I was, I felt it was a good idea late one summer to ride my bike from my dad's house to the house of girl I was pining after.  The girl had no idea I was coming--in my mind, she would be outside tending to her horses and I would just so happen to be riding by--and she lived rather far away for someone whose rejected the very notion of exercise.  Google Earth now tells me my ride was five and a half miles one way.  It certainly was a long and painful ride on my bike, punctuated with a sore butt and stiff legs.  But I made the trip and discovered the girl was indeed not outside tending to her horses.  Not having the guts to knock on her door I turned around and pedaled home, defeated.  Luckily for me, the girl turned out to not be worthy of any further bike rides.

A few years later I found myself riding my bike to see another girl, this one much closer--she lived less than a mile from my dad.  Parking my bike next to her house, we commenced to talk the night away.  I had lied to my dad and told him I was at a friend's house who lived very close to where I was.  As the twilight faded to a deeper darkness, I grew afraid and called my friend's house.  When his mom answered the phone, I asked that if my dad called asking where I was, that she say I was playing video games and would be home shortly.  She reluctantly agreed, or at least pretended to agree, and I continued to pursue this fine young lady.  Finally, when it truly got too late for me to stick around, I fearfully rode home and completed the lie saying I was indeed playing video games.  Nearly five years later, that girl I visited would become my loving girlfriend and partner, and that first brave visit to her house was only possible because of my beloved bike.

Keri and I, on the night of my deceitful bike ride

For the most part, however, my mountain bike sat unused under my dad's shed until I graduated from high school and entered college.  Despite living about a mile away from Earlham College, the school I was to attend, I obviously wanted a faster means of conveyance than my feet.  I beckoned for my bike and it came to me, and served ever faithfully as it bore me daily to my place of higher learning.  Through rain, wind, snow, sleet and sunshine I rode my hardy little mountain bike, only walking or getting a ride from my mom in the most dire of circumstances.

Honestly this time in my life is when I used my mountain bike the most.  I remember one time, very early in my stay at Earlham College, when I was riding in the night with an acquaintance and my then-girlfriend.  My acquaintance, a lover of road bikes from the East Coast, was annoyed with the slow pace maintained by the two mountain bikes following him.  In an energetic mood, I challenged him to a race.  The funny thing is that up until that point I had no idea that road bikes had a higher gearing than mountain bikes, and that it was virtually impossible for a mountain bike to keep up with a road bike on payment.  As my acquaintance zipped away from me, I learned then and there that maybe mountain bikes were not the only kind of bike to have.

Another memorable moment from that year of dedicated bike commuting happened over the winter.  I rode my bike to school even through the snow, most days, but one afternoon it began to sleet rather nastily while I was in class.  Ever persistent, I saddled my blue friend and slowly made my way towards the road via the grass.  This was smart, because the moment I touched the sidewalk, both tires flew out from under me and I landed on my side.  Hearing the masculine-crushing "awww" of two girls walking to class behind me, I jumped to my feet with burning cheeks and got back on my bike.  The same thing happened just seconds later.  Defeated, I solemnly walked my bike home.

It was during the winter that year that I learned a very useful and fun trick on my mountain bike:  I learned to ride with no hands.  Now, I had received some jeering from friends for not being able to brandish this skill usually earned early in childhood.  In my defense, I grew up in a mountain biking world.  You simply don't remove your hands from the handlebars very often while mountain biking.  Also, my overly protective parents probably had a hand in that, always wanting me to be safe.  But I learned to ride with no hands in a somewhat interesting way:  it was simply too cold to ride with my hands.  Not having gloves, I had taken to wearing wool socks over my hands.  This did an adequate job of not absolutely freezing my fingers in the early winter mornings, but I found it was hard to grip the handlebars and ride with socks on my hands.  So, I slowly began to take my hands off of the handlebars for longer and longer periods of time.  After about a week of experimenting with this, I finally got it down and by January I was riding most of the way to school with my socked hands in the pockets of my leather coat.

The most catastrophic thing to happen with my bike--excepting its ruinous theft--happened that year.  While riding on campus one day, I heard a very loud pop and clang, and looked down to see my largest chainring had horrifically bent itself out from the rest of the crank.  Completely confused as to what I had done, I called up my dad and he took the bike in to fix it.  Getting a new chainring from the local bike shop--which I would be employed by just two years later--he fixed it and his diagnosis was that one of the chainring bolts was not securely tightened.  My torque while pedaling then caused the chainring to pull out and mangle itself. While working at this bike shop later in life, I would discover a small collection of similarly damaged chainrings.  It always amused me to see these.

At the end of that year I finally got my first car, a hand-me-down green Saturn.  Driving to my summer job, my precious mountain bike found a new occupation: it bore me on the several nights of what me and my friends would come to call "rollerbikein."

"Rollerbikein", or more sensibly "roller biking," was the night time recreation me and my friends found ourselves doing nearly every night the summer after our first year out of high school.  Usually starting sometime between midnight and 2am, we would meet in the town of Centerville--where we had gone to school--to simply ride aimlessly around the town discussing everything from the ravings of Henry David Thoreau to the meaningless events that transpired while we walked the halls of Centerville High School.  We rode until we couldn't bear it any longer, sometimes heading home as late as 7am.  I was most definitely late to work more than once that summer.  It was a good time in my life, and those memories all happened on my mountain bike.  Rollerbikein, by the way, got its name from the fact that one of my friends would often roller blade instead of bike.  The Germanic twist thrown on the end--say the word out loud with a gross German accent--came about from a typo one night while instant-messaging a group of girls we wished to join us.  They did not.

When college started back up my bike saw less and less use.  I rode to school rarely, usually driving my newly obtained car.  One particular little adventure which stemmed from a bike ride that year caused me to wind up in an abandoned gravel pit.  A friend--the friend who often roller bladed while rollerbikein--discovered an abandoned gravel pit near his house.  We decided bikes would be the most sensible means of an approach, as it was illegal for us to be trespassing, and we could hide the bikes in the brush next to the road.  We dubbed this discovery "Utah", for its rocky terrain seemed very foreign to us and our Midwestern minds.  We only visited "Utah" a few times, as fear got the better of us.  "Utah's" supposed interesting qualities also waned rather quickly.

The alien world of "Utah", which was really just a gravel pit.

At the end of that year I decided to take a leave of absence from college.  Over the course of that summer I saved almost all of the money I made from my summer job and put it towards one of my most ambitious undertakings:  a self-imposed period of vagrancy in which I would travel westward across the country with no real aim other than to see what the land had to offer.  A decision I made early in this endeavor was to bring a bike with me:  half for fun, the other and more important half as insurance in the event my car would break down.  And it did.  But, that will come later.

Despite just getting my hands on a 1985 Cannondale road bike from my dad, I decided to take my mountain bike as I could also ride it on trails and it would still serve its purpose of being an alternate means of transportation in the event my car died.  With my bike perched on the old Allen bike rack, and my cable lock tethering it to the chassis of my car--the same cable lock which the thief cut to get to my bike just a week ago--I headed out across the country.

Taken on the grasslands of South Dakota.

Only a few days into the trek I removed the wheels from my bike and stowed them inside my car.  I was worried a thief would take them.  For most of my journey, my frame sat strapped to my rack, the chain dangling in the interstate's wind.

My mountain bike finally got to see some mountains, for the first time in its life, in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  One morning I awoke, inside my car, and decided I was going to mountain bike.  So, I climbed onto the saddle and set forth on what I can only assume was the Old Baldy Trail.  It was a very difficult ride for me.  I hadn't really been mountain biking since I was nine or ten years old, and you can bet I was riding on some simple terrain then.  Truth be told, I believe the trail wasn't that bad of a trail, I was simply out of shape to a gross degree and had very little experience in technical riding.  Despite this, I powered on, and eventually reached the final steep climb.  There was no way I could pedal up that, so I pushed my bike to the top.  Enjoying the view, I was still very proud.  On the ride back, I nearly ran into two much more serious cyclists.  I'm sure they thought little of me, as I was huffing and puffing up a very slight incline.  Still, I was mountain biking.

My success shot.  Note the very small water bottle.

My bike wouldn't see much action until I reached Oregon.  Wyoming was met with hiking and camping, and I only drove through Idaho.  By the time I reached the other side of Oregon, almost to the coast, I noticed the oil light on my car glaring up at me.  Panic struck as I pulled off on the next rest area.  Checking my oil, I discovered I had burned almost all of it away.  My naivete and negligence had finally caught up with me.  It was in that moment that my insurance came through for me.  Reinstalling the wheels to my trusty mountain bike, I set off in search of oil for my dry car.

I of course did not ride on the interstate directly, but took to the wide stretch of roughly cut grass running alongside the pavement.  What I soon found, however, was that briars and thorns laced this deceiving grass, and I frantically stopped riding for fear of getting a flat--the last thing I needed.  Luckily, I spied a road on the other side of a fence next to me, so tossing my bike over I made my way safely towards town on pavement.  I soon found a small gas station, where I bought as much oil as I could from an Asian man who coyly asked if the oil was for my bike.  In no mood for fun, I returned to my bike with four quarts of oil, a whole gallon.  It was then I realized I may have gotten myself into another pickle.  I set off anyways, juggling the four quarts of oil as they shifted frustratingly inside of the plastic bag.  I was happy I could ride with no hands.  I ended up getting back to my car, and with some help from kind strangers we got my car running.  My mountain bike really saved me then.  Otherwise, I would have been stuck on the other side of the country with nothing to help me but the soles of my shoes.

Its hard to see, but my bike is safely resting on the back
of my car, next to a truly majestic life-form.

My trip concluded with no other interesting bike stories.  When I finally returned home, I found myself chasing down my friends in Centerville on my mountain bike to let them know I was back.

My road bike understandably took over as my dominant bike, for as I said earlier, a mountain bike has little use in Richmond, Indiana.  During this time in my life, it was mostly ridden by one of my friends, who occasionally joined us in one of our bouts of rollerbikein.  I took it trail riding a few times in nearby places where one could get a taste of single track, but these places were too far away for me to do it often.  After a painful winter I found myself employed at the local bike shop and thus began my education in bicycles.

During my time at the bike shop, my friends and I ventured one evening to create a new sport:  a form of bicycle soccer which we called "boccer."  We didn't know it already existed, and in a much more extreme form, but we were still content with our idea.  Setting up a field in our old high school parking lot, we established a team of two bicycles versus two roller bladers.  Kicking and shoving a soccer ball with whatever we could, we had a ton of fun playing our crude game.  I manned my beloved mountain bike, for it was slower and easier to maneuver than my road bike.  My favorite memory of this game was when I slammed onto my front brakes and started to go over the handlebars.  It all happened in a splendidly slowed state of time, as the back wheel arced up and I felt myself rise.  I swear I hopped very briefly on my front wheel as I tried to shove the back wheel down.  However, I did not have the dexterity to accomplish this, and went down as my bike crashed below me.  I came out with nothing more than a few scratches on my hand, and all my bike got was a scuff on its new saddle.  We quickly resumed playing.

A few years later I would be leaving Richmond, Indiana for Bullhead City, Arizona.  My bikes followed me, and I was anxious to ride my mountain bike in the desert.  However, when we came to the barren spit-stain that is Bullhead City, I discovered that the dirt floor of the Mohave Desert is far too loose and soft for aimless roaming, and there were no mountain biking trails I could discover in my vicinity.  And so my mountain bike sadly sat longer, until I quickly moved to Tucson, Arizona, where I am now.  At first I reluctantly decided to try and sell it.  It needed a lot of work to be the mountain bike I wanted, and I was frustrated with what I would have to do to get it running the way I wanted.  I posted it on Craiglist for $300 and got a hit, but he was slow to follow-up and in that time I decided I did not want to sell it.  The bike simply meant too much to me.  I figured if it was so hard for me to force myself to let it go, I shouldn't be getting rid of it.  So I kept it and began to happily plan for what I was going to do with it.

I wished to take it into the mountains, but put it off as my girlfriend Keri--yes, the girl I rode to woo earlier in my tale--does not have a mountain bike and I wanted to share that experience.  Already having my two road bikes and Keri's bike in our apartment, with little room for much else, I reluctantly locked it to the wooden railing in front of our third-floor apartment.  You couldn't see the bike from the ground.  It was locked with the same cable lock that secured it throughout college and across the country, and although I knew it was the least secure option, it was my only option because the wooden railing would not allow for a U-Lock.  It stayed safe for a few months, but it was finally taken from me.

Goodbye, Yamamaru

The recalling of these memories, which don't even fulfill the whole spectrum of what I've experienced with this bike, have made me miss it even more.  I loved the bike.  I called it "Yamamaru" later in my time with it, giving it a Japanese name which could be translated to an affectionate name for a mountain.  It pains me to know that it was more than likely sold for drug money, and will probably never have a good home again.  It will likely never see the Arizona mountains I so wanted to take it to.  It may even be in pieces now, maliciously stripped apart and strewn about the world.  Evil men take bicycles.  A good bike can free our souls, and only the very cruel can take that from someone.

Copper Luck

     I've neglected this blog for a long time now.  I haven't been idle with bike projects, I have only lost the desire to photograph and write about everything I do.  It can be tiring and at times annoying.  Sometimes you just have to do stuff and not be so pretentious as to tell the whole world about it.  Haha.

     Quite a few bikes have entered my life in the past several months.  First was the Triumph road bike, which I did actually report about on here.  I have finally decided to abandon it--half out of lack of interest, half out of want for money, and half because it beat me.  You may recall I stated that the frame had some noticable damage, in the form of a bent seat stay and an out-of-alignment rear triangle.  Sadly, that wasn't all of it.  The down tube had a small dent and kink in it, and although I wasn't able to completely confirm it, I am quite certain the head tube is tweaked.  As if that wasn't enough, the fork is also bent and damaged.

     Long story short, I bought a severely bent bicycle frame.  I tried to realign the rear triangle best I could, and the best I could do was remove the bend in the seat stay.  It is still out of alignment.  The kink in the down tube and potentially tweaked head tube are beyond my experience or skill to fix.  What admittedly little research I did seemed to yield something I already kind of knew in the back of my head:  frame alignment sort of requires a lot of trial and error and unconventional and often-times home-made tools.  In fact, the infamous story associated with frame alignment is that the super secret tools of the trade are a few 2x4's and a heavy boot.

     A few months after hastily buying the Triumph I decided to get a proper road bike for my fiancee Keri.  We sold her Motobecane at the spring GABA Bike Swap in Tucson, and used that money to buy a Univega off of Craigslist.  Unfortunately, despite being overly prepared and wary of being suckered again, the Univega eventually revealed to also be a bad purchase.  Although the frame itself has no damage, it has some odd qualities and, lo and behold, the fork is bent and damaged.  I overpaid for it, and the "I can fix this!" part of my brain was louder than the "You should buy something that doesn't need any work" part.  A fork can be replaced, however, and that was our plan for a few months as it accumulated dust hanging up at work.  But eventually we decided it wasn't really worth it, and it would only be a mediocre road bike at best after we dumped more money into it than I originally paid.

Keri's Univega, which we aren't keeping.  This was almost as close as I got to "finishing" it before we decided to throw in the towel.  I put my Shimano 2300 crank that I had on my Cannondale for a while on the bike, and gave her my SunRingle sealed wheels that I've swapped around on my bikes.  Even in this picture, you can see the bent back fork.
Taken on May 2, 2014

     With disheartened spirits, a third bike caught my eye.  Or rather, a frame.  Listed for forty-five bucks on Craigslist was a deep green GT Borrego frame, fork, Tioga headset and GT stem.  The frame, although obviously scuffed from use for the past twenty years, was in relatively awesome shape.  Although perhaps a hair on the smaller side for me, I knew I could make it work.  I fell in love with it immediately and asked to meet the guy at the shop so I could inspect this thing in every possible way, and also hide from his money-hungry eyes as I took my time assessing it.  It checked out in nearly every possible way, save for an extremely slight misalignment in the rear triangle.  Nothing really to worry about, after everything is said and done.  Although the guy I bought it from was a little stiff and cold, he accepted forty dollars for it and it was mine.  Even though it has been sitting virtually untouched since that day, I am extremely anxious to build it up into a rigid, vintage mountain bike.  I've tried to buy a few parts for it on eBay, but I am either too cheap or too slow--I haven't gotten anything for it yet.  It took two bad purchases before I finally made a good one, and the adage seems to have been upheld--third time's the charm.

My 1993 GT Borrego frame.  A beauty isn't she?  I love everything about it.  Ideally I'd love to have some vintage Shimano Deore XT components and modern cantilever brakes on it, but we'll see what I can find.
Taken May 12, 2014

     A few weeks ago, Keri and I decided to renew our plans to get into the Northwest, this time with our sights set on the accessible metropolis of Portland instead of the backwater paradise that is Bend.  In doing so, I will be doing my best to sell the Triumph and Univega.  Don't worry!  I will be extremely upfront with the state of the bikes.  I'm not as worried about the Univega.  Trying to break even will be the hard part.  The Triumph, however, may end up just being donated to BICAS.  I don't feel the frame is excessively dangerous, but it is not perfect.

     Despite our freshly forged pact to save money and downsize for our move, temptation once again found its way into my world.  A few days ago I received a call from a friend and spouse of a coworker who also has a deep fascination in vintage road bikes.  A retired luthier, he cultivates an extreme attention to detail and thirst for the background knowledge of the bikes, parts, and companies of the past.  He also maintains a healthy network of contacts, fellow stewards of a bygone age of bicycle manufacturing and design, which gives him access to objects that may have not normally popped up on Craigslist or eBay.

     He called to tell me he had acquired a bike that was not only very nice and a bit unique, but was also my size.  He wanted to show it to me, and I wanted to look at it.  It turned out to be a 1983 Centurion Elite RS road bike, with an eye popping candy apple red paint job and a delicious selection of parts.  To summarize some of the highlights:

• Suntour Cyclone MkII derailleurs
• Sugino AS crank
• Suntour VX hubs with Rigida rims
• Anodized copper Dia Compe GX 500 brakes and levers
• Tange Aero headset

     The frame is made of Tange #2 tubing, an especially supple yet responsive selection of tubing.  He described the bike as being only a few steps below the top-end of Centurion's line-up.  I was immediately impressed.  Not only was the bike in very good shape--not immaculate but damn close--but it appeared to be all original, save for the wheels.  It is very hard to come by an old bike that has not been modified, and sometimes it can be hard to spot because the part that doesn't belong can very easily be just as old!

The bike that was too tempting to pass up.  Can't wait to dial it in.
Taken July 21, 2014

     The siren's song of bike-lust began to start murmuring in my head.  Although Keri and I had just agreed to not spend any superfluous money and cram every spare penny into savings, I was standing in front of a real gem.  Being a 58cm frame, it was my "official" size, a far better fit than my monstrous yet beloved 62cm Fuji S-12S.  It was in such good shape, I couldn't pass it up, but I told him I'd have to think about it.

     Keri and I talked about it that night and she wasn't keen on the idea.  Not only was I wanting to spend our precious savings, but I was going to buy another bike.  The line in the sand had been drawn, and I was right on the edge.  But thankfully, I stayed on the other side of the line, and let things simmer.  A day passed and I didn't mention it at all.  The next day I texted my friend back and he tells me that I could provide some labor and teaching to help reduce the price, and I decided I wanted to at least ride it--the tires and tubes were dry-rotted the day before.  I pulled the 27" tires and tubes off of the skeleton of my wretched Triumph hanging in the shed and headed over to his place, and we set it up.  I took it out for a somewhat long test ride, maybe a few miles on the nearby bike path.  I fell in love.  It zipped, it zoomed, it carried me swiftly and deftly.  I could accelerate with this bike in a way I rarely could on my work horse of a Fuji.  It sparkled in the sun and rolled quietly.  I wanted it.  I needed it.

     Keri agreed that I could buy it on one condition:  that I actually ride the dumb thing!  Having gotten it yesterday, I already rode it on our weekly Sunday night ride, and to work today.  It's felt great both times.  I still have to go through and clean everything, but that can wait for now.  The most pressing things--a longer seatpost, bar tape, and some brake pads newer than 1983--will be acquired soon but it is very rideable and very fun now.

     Luck finally came my way.

This Wheel's on Fire

The beginnings of an interesting wheel build.
Taken March 28, 2014

     About three months ago I finished building a pair of wheels to carry my favorite bicycle: my 1980 Fuji S12-S.  It was a little bit of a unique experience for me.  It was the first time I was building a pair of wheels completely by myself, and it was also the first time I was building wheels by myself, for myself.  As mentioned in my long ago post detailing my first true solo wheel build, I had only helped build my "first" set of wheels.  These wheels would be completely built by me, and completely for me.

     For about a year, I planned to lace modern rims to the original hubs for my Fuji.  I had prepped the hubs long ago, so the only real hang up was the cost of new rims and spokes.  I'd settled on my cheap stand-by: SunRingle rims, specifially the CR-18.  SunRingle makes inexpensive, yet effective and aesthetically pleasing rims.  They are stout and plain, just how I like most things.

     The spokes are really the hardest thing to procure for a wheel build.  They are expensive--you can't get away from that.  You can skimp on a hub and rim, but even cheap spokes add up.  Unless you own a bike shop and you're ordering straight from distributors, you're either paying too much or buying too many.  To make matters worse, I wanted this wheel build to mean something, which means I wanted decent spokes and a slightly unique lacing configuration--double butted spokes and a four-cross pattern.  Four cross means that each spoke crosses four other spokes.  This demands a longer spoke, and my spoke length calculations were telling me I was going to be needing some of the longest spokes that I could get from work.  In fact, there was one size that I could not get from work.  This was the real hang up.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I should do.  Then I stumbled upon a site I'd seen a long time ago, and all of that changed.

     Wheel Fanatyk is a half blog, half online store dealing exclusively in the lore, science, and distribution of wheel building.  It is a tremendous resource, if not for their product then for their knowledge.  The owners of the site are gracious and kind enough to provide custom spoke lengths at a tremendously low price!  And the spokes were actually decent!  I was overjoyed, and certain there was a catch.  But after the spokes promptly arrived, packaged and marked in an exceedingly professional manner, I realized I'd found a true gem of a resource.

     For the record, I highly recommend buying spokes from this website for your wheel builds.

     As previously mentioned, I wanted to go "all out" and so I bought spoke washers.  These "obscure bike components", as they were once described to me, are intended to seat between the spoke head and the flange of the hub shell.  My first non-solo wheel build, years ago in Indiana, used spoke washers.  To me, they were the icing on the cake, the cherry on top of a wheel build to mark it as the product of true craftsmanship.  Afterall, I hadn't seen spoke washers since I had used them.

The finished front wheel.
Taken April 19, 2014

     What I didn't know was that spoke washers are intended for 1.8mm spokes.  The spokes I had ordered were 2.0mm, because they were double butted.  That means the spokes I had bought forever ago were only single butted!  I was tremendously confused, and eventually had to accept the fact that my memory left out that detail.  Luckily, spoke washers are still recommended for lacing the old Sturmey-Archer hubs with modern spokes, so I will be able to use my small pile of washers for that build, whenever it may happen.

     Once I had everything gathered, I set to work lacing the wheel.  The catch, this time, was that I intended to do as much of the build completely by myself as I could--that means no instructions, no guides, no books.  Just me, a hub, thirty-six spokes and a rim.  Overall I did a pretty good job.  I did have to consult my latest wheel book, "The Bicycle Wheel" by Jobst Brandt, only a few times.  Revered as the wheel builder's bible, it's goal is to dispel the mythos surrounding the bicycle wheel with the hard steel of an engineer's overly analytical mind.  It is worth a quick read by any serious bike mechanic.  Depending on one's pre-existing skill and knowledge level, it may not shed much light but it will undoubtedly contain some useful nuggets of information.

The finished wheels.  Ignore the poor photography.
Taken April 19, 2014

     Lacing the wheel is, in my opinion, not the hard part of building a wheel.  It is basically a puzzle, and with enough time I think anyone could figure it out, if they wanted to.  After the last nipple is threaded onto the last spoke, the second part of the wheel build can begin:  the tensioning.  This is where practice can manifest into skill and intuition can potentially make your day better.  I had a little bit of a time tensioning these wheels.  The front wheel turned out alright, but the rear wheel gave me some trouble.  Somewhere in the process of bringing up the tension on each spoke in a uniform manner, consistency left me and a handful of spokes were off by quite a bit.  I had to bring down the tension on everything and basically start over.  But I got it.

     In the end I got a pair of nice wheels.  I've been riding them for about three months now with no issues.  I haven't checked the tension on the wheels yet but I feel that when I do they will not be too far off.  The final step in the whole process was mounting my brand new tires.  Before this, I had been riding Continental Gatorskins for nearly 3 years--almost as long as I've been working on bikes!  I love the Gatorskin and always recommend it as a quality 700c road tire, as most mechanics will.  But I had decided to change it up this time, and get something a little more appropriate for my touring frame and commuter bike.  I went with the Continental Touring Plus.  Still having the extreme puncture resistance that is built into the Gatorskin, these tires sport a more all-terrain tread pattern, are wider, and have a reflective sidewall.  I can say that I am exceedingly happy with my choice.  I will probably never put a different tire on my Fuji.

The finished rear wheel.
Taken April 19, 2014

     I really want to say that the new wheels feel different.  I want to say that I can feel the strength and responsiveness of the new wheels.  I don't know if I can say that honestly.  What I can say with complete certainty, however, is that I ride with an overwhelming satisfaction on the wheels I built with my own two hands.

The Significance of the Triumph Bicycle

     I can be a bit of an impulsive person.  If the hammer of erratic decisions strikes me just the right way, I am prone to act hastily and without putting too much thought into things.  This figurative hammer struck me yesterday, at work, and today I purchased a customer's bike:  a 1984 Triumph Spitfire road bike.

Shortly after buying it.
Taken April 7, 2014

     I'm not going to lie, virtually the only reason I wanted the bike was because it had the name Triumph on it.  What is the significance of that?  Well, on his famous 1965 album "Highway 61 Revisited", Bob Dylan is wearing a Triumph Motorcycles tee-shirt.  And in 1966, it was a Triumph motorcycle that Dylan wrecked, dramatically changing the course of his music and his life for the proceeding decade.  A Triumph motorcycle was, in a way, the cause for The Basement Tapes.  Having a bicycle made by the same company was too enticing to pass up.

The infamous album cover, which sparked the even more infamous interviewer's question about the significance of motorcycles.
Source

     After I gave the kid his money and started stripping it down, however, the ringing of that impulsive hammer began to fill my ears and a small pit formed in my stomach.  The frame was damaged.  I'd asked the kid if the bike had been in a wreck and he had said no, but it's very obvious now that it had been.  The non-drive side seatstay has an obvious bend in it.  Upon further inspection, I also discovered that the entire back end is tweaked at least 3 millimeters to the drive side.

A little hard to see, but the non-drive side (left) seatstay has a slight bend in it.
Taken April 7, 2014

     But this is not terrible news; in fact, it is a great learning opportunity for me.  I am always singing the praises of chromoly steel, and one of those praises is that it is repairable.  It's time for me to put my money where my mouth is, and see if I can repair this frame.  I think I can, but I have never done anything like this so it will be a learning experience.

The head badge looks good but it has been torn from one of the rivets.  I will probably be JB-Welding it back on.
Taken April 7, 2014

     As for the bike itself, my plan is make it a single speed.  Anyone who knows me might be rightfully surprised.  I am not quiet about my disdain for single speeds, especially fixed gear bicycles.  But any good bike mechanic should have one and this is a great opportunity to put one together.  I will of course give a more indepth post after I fix the frame.  In the mean time, I need to build my wheels.

Changing of the Guard

     I've been pretty quiet on here for a while now.  This is mostly because my interests have lied elsewhere, and also a bit because some substantial changes are coming up in my life.  To be terse, we'll be moving within a month to a much nicer, larger space.  Yahoo!

     But this post is about some upcoming projects, and the most pressing one on my plate is getting my Fuji S12-S into a better riding state.  No, nothing is explicitly "wrong" with the bike.  I've just recently realized some elements could be improved, and so I'm working to improve them.

The ole workhorse, hanging up and waiting for its new parts.
Taken March 21, 2014

     First on the list is pedals.  Shortly after moving to Tucson, I installed my Origin-8 Track Pro pedals on the bike, which I honestly like quite a bit.  However, there are a few things I don't like about them, specifically that they are a bit on the small side (because they are track pedals) and they are asymmetrical.  I've developed quite a hatred for asymmetrical, one-sided pedals, and I've had my eyes on the MKS Sylvan Touring pedals for a very, very long time.  Finally, I pulled the trigger and now a pair are laying on my tool chest, ready to be installed.

The pedals I've mostly ridden the Fuji with, Origin-8 Track Pro pedals.  They are actually a pretty well-made pedal, apparently manufactured by Wellgo, they have sealed bearings and I've had no trouble with them.  But alas, they are small, and asymmetrical.
Taken March 21, 2014

     Mikashima Industrial Company, or MKS, pedals are made in Japan, something that stands out a bit nowadays.  A lot of the industry has since moved from Japan's labor force into the cheaper factories of China and Taiwan.  According to their website's timeline, MKS has been making pedals since 1946, and they are one of only two pedal manufacturers in Japan, although I'm betting the other company they are alluding to is Shimano, whose manufacturing is in Singapore and elsewhere.

MKS Sylvan Touring pedal.  Long cage.  So nice.
Taken March 21, 2014

     For their slightly steep price they may look simplistic but they are, from what I've heard, hardy and well-made through-and-through.  I know a few people with MKS pedals and nothing bad has been said of their quality, so I'm anxious to see how well they work for me.  Besides being symmetrical, the pedals are quite wide, even by today's standards.  I've been realizing lately that perhaps my feet are a little on the wide side.  About a month ago I threw on the original "quill" style pedals that came on my Fuji and went for a ride.  It was terrible.  The "quill" of the pedal was digging into my foot the entire time and I legitimately did not have a fun ride.  These new pedals, however, should fit the bill perfectly.

The original stock pedals, MKS Quill-2K.  Honestly not terrible pedals, they are just too narrow for my feet but also lack the iconic tooth which allows for easily flipping the pedal to the correct orientation.  The only thing worse than a one sided pedal is one you can't easily flip!
Taken March 21, 2014

     Despite their renowned ruggedness, they are also known to come from the factory with a tighter-than-necessary bearing adjustment, and unfortunately my pair were plagued by this as well.  Although I have not done a lot of pedal work, I'd overhauled a pedal once, for the heck of it.  It's not a terribly hard process, although a little trickier than the usual cup-and-cone adjustment due to the flats of the nuts being obstructed by the pedal body.  This means you have to use sockets, which changes the procedure a little bit.

The right pedal disassembled.  The chromoly spindle is in the vise, with the aluminum pedal body,
hardware and a few bearings in the plastic bin.  Ignore the left pedal chilling in the back.
Taken March 21, 2014

     Basically the trick is to not tighten the cone as much as you normally would, which allows the cone to not over-compress the bearings when you lock down the locknut.  It's similar to a technique I sometimes use on hubs.  These pedals, for one, had a scant amount of grease, and it was some kind of low quality clear grease.  That will not do!  So I loaded them up with some dandy Phil Wood grease and put it all back together.  It took a few tries to get the adjustment just right.  The process is a bit of trial and error, not terribly precise.  But I got it.

Left:  Original grease.  You can barely see it!
Right:  After cleaning everything and applying my own Phil Wood Grease.  Much better.
Taken March 21, 2014

     I'm excited to take the pedals out for a ride.  The next big project for the Fuji is none other than a pair of wheel builds.  After thinking about it and talking about it for a long time, I'm finally going through with my plans to lace the original hubs to some modern 700c rims.  I have the rims and hubs with me, just waiting on the spokes to arrive.  I'll be doing a 4 cross pattern on both wheels, which may make some people wince, but I am going for durability here.  I also have some Continental Touring Plus tires on the way, and after everything is put together, I'll be rolling along on an awesome setup.  Before it is all said and done, I'm planning on doing a complete overhaul on the bike, cleaning and rebuilding everything I can, and I will be experimenting with a new brake lever position to improve the fit of the bike.  I'm very excited.

All three pedals I've mentioned, side-by-side.  The size comparison should be obvious.
Taken March 21, 2014

     Another post will detail the wheel building process when I get all of my parts in.

Over the Rocks, Through the Sand, Under the Bridges

     Lately I have been finding myself in unusual and wonderful situations:  crunching over hard, sun-baked dirt; grinding the knobs of my tire into dunes of sand like an army of steam-shovels; cranking over rocks and hills and blocks of cement.

     I've been mountain biking.

     Or at least I've been doing something resembling mountain biking.  I think it is more accurate to say I've been seeking out the hidden jewels of urban off-roading.  Suffice to say, I finally bit the bullet and got the final part I needed to make my dad's mountain bike completely ride-worthy.  All I needed was a 9-speed cassette, and I wanted to match the quality level my dad had invested in the bike, so I bought an XT M770 9-speed cassette, 11-32 teeth for those who would care.

XT 9-speed cassette.  Brand new.
Taken December 2, 2013

     But even before that, I ventured out with a coworker and we romped on the back alleys and dirt roads of central Tucson.  This was an enlightening ride, for a few reasons.  I was surprised to find the alley ways of Tucson unpaved and lined by privacy fences.  They were almost inviting, with hardly any evidence of use.  We did not find the broken cars and sketchy figures I was used to seeing down moldy and rotten alley ways.  It was perfect for the burgeoning mountain biker.  That ride set a fire in me that I had to tend to, and I purchased the cassette soon afterwards.

     I inevitably set out on my own rides.  Along the Rillito River Path, a multi-use path running alongside the Rillito "River" in northern Tucson, I found stretches of hard dirt trails, often times running parallel to the paved path, but not uncommonly venturing off into the brush and unknown that lay beyond it.  It was thrilling.  Although there is certainly nothing particularly special about these paths, I felt like I was discovering something hidden and secret.  My excursions out into the underground network of urban dirt trails had began.

Phone-photos of me in the wash of the Rillito River, attempting to find a ride-able path through
the dunes of sand.  I found the passage.  I call it the Shai-hulud.
Taken on January 10, 2014

     Not long into pedaling my way along these little trails tucked under palo verde and mesquite branches, I started to notice something:  I was gripped by fear.  Anything resembling an obstacle suddenly appeared as an insurmountable wall.  It started with small beds of rocks.  My mind was still on my Fuji, and I held my breath as my road bike mind tensed with fear.  Expecting instability, and at worse a wreck, the fat off-road tires rolled over the pitiful obstacles with ease.  Of course.  Duh.  What was I thinking?

     All right, so small rocks are alright.  What about turning my handlebars while on these rocks?

     Wow, that was easy too.  Well what happens when I reach a bigger rock?

     Ok, I was in too high of a gear and couldn't maintain momentum.  So I tried it again, and made it through.  That felt easy.

     What about that obstacle?  Wow, that was a breeze.

A sprig of grass, growing up in the middle of dirt and sand and gravel,
amidst strewn garbage, old dirty mattresses and soiled condoms.  Made me happy to find it.
Taken on January 4, 2014

     I began to realize that mountain biking is, for me, a very tightly packed series of tiny obstacles, with success over each one giving me a small boost in self confidence.  It had been a very, very long time since I had been mountain biking.  I'd done a very small amount in Indiana, but it had been so rare and sparse that I hesitate to "count it."  The last time I'd been mountain biking--real, true mountain biking--had been when we still lived in North Carolina.  The mid and late nineties.  I had still been in elementary school.  My parents were still together.  We didn't have the bike shop anymore, but my dad still rode a lot.  I was just a kid, but my parents had gotten me a Gary Fisher mountain bike.  It'd been so long ago, that I had mostly forgotten the little tips and tricks imparted to me by my parents.

Posing in the driveway.  Gary Fisher mountain bike.  Wish I knew where that was...
Date unknown.

     But out there in the Arizona sun, amidst the cacti and shrubs of the Sonoran Desert, it started to come back to me.  I heard my dad's voice in my head:  "Keep your pedals parallel to the ground when you're coasting downhill, that way you can ride over stuff."  Yes!  And then I remembered my mom's advice:  "Just keep pedaling.  Pedal through the rocks.  Pedal over the log, over the roots.  When you stop pedaling is when you fall."  I was starting to remember.

     So I pedaled over the rocks, through the sand, and under the bridges.  I kept my pedals parallel and rolled over the big stuff.  I got off the pavement and onto the dirt, seeking anything that looked even remotely fun.  Things that scared me at first don't seem like anything now.  I'm still a complete novice, but I come from real mountain bikers, before disk brakes and full suspension and 29 inch wheels; before thirty-gear bikes and tubeless tires and adjustable seatposts.  I'm only going to get better, only going to get more confident.

     Aesthetically I'm still partial to old road bikes.  I like working on them, and I appreciate what they have to offer.  But my passion lies on the dirt, cranking up hills and mountains and zipping back down them.  I'm the son of a mountain biker, after all.

Taken on January 27, 2013

Tools of our Fathers

     I could go into some kind of abstract dissection of what tools are to a mechanic, emphasizing the extension of the mind into physical matter and kinetic memory and feeling.  I could go on for a bit about it, probably, but I won't.  There is enough of that out there.  Not that I completely disagree with it, but I've found that kind of exposition can become tiresome.

     Instead I'll simply say that any mechanic will find tremendous value in tools.  Someone can buy a tool when they need it, use it, and then keep it for the next time they need it.  Tools don't expire, and most will require an enormous amount of abuse to "wear out."  Tools can easily pass from one generation to the next, fulfilling their duties over the years.  When this happens, those tools have even more value than anything off the shelf at a hardware store.

     Keri and I visited our hometown of Richmond, Indiana late October this year.  While back home, I took a day to go through my dad's tools.  Partly I was curious as to what exactly he had, and partly I was wanting to take some back to Arizona with me.  Besides simply wanting some basic tools, such as wrenches, screwdrivers and pliers, I was also wanting the remainder of his bicycle tools.  Several months after starting my job at the bike shop in Indiana, he let me go through his bicycle tools to pick out what I wanted, and I made out with roughly a third of what he had.  Now, I wanted all of them.

     I wanted them because they were his.  I am openly quite materialistic, and it is common for a physical thing to have significant meaning to me.  This, I think, goes with being mechanically inclined.  My dad's tools, all of them, are significant to me, simply because they were his and they were what he used on a daily basis.  He used his tools to wrought what others could not, and they were immensely valuable to him.

    But they are not only valuable to me in a keepsake sort of way.  I want to use them.  I want to use his tools to continue the sort of work he did.  In that way, I can honor him and make him proud of what I'm doing with my life.  They were passed onto me, and I'm going to use them.  It's as simple as that.

    I now have, by my best reckoning, all of the bike tools he had in the later part of his life.  It is likely that he gave something away at some point or another, as he was at times charitable with these sorts of things, but that doesn't bother me too much.  I don't mind the tendrils of my father's generosity vining out and taking root in others lives.

All of my dad's bike tools.
Taken November 13, 2013

     Here they are.  Enough to run a successful shop in 1994, not so much for a modern shop, but it will be a good start some day.  Things to note:

• The assortment of brake tools in the center.  Used to secure caliper brakes in a closed position while tightening pinch bolts, they don't really make stuff like this anymore, to my knowledge.
• The twenty-four freewheel removal tools at the top.  There are a lot of duplicates, but there are also some really cool ones.  A few SunTour made ones stand out, as well as a three-pronged one I had never seen before.  I'll be excited if I ever need to use that to remove a freewheel.
• The large array of bottom bracket associated wrenches on the right.  Again, lots of duplicates, and a few cool ones as well.  One of the lock-ring spanners is made by Sugino.  Definitely holding onto that.
• The truly most valuable tool in the assortment is the homemade headset cup press at the bottom.  Normally a very expensive tool from Park, my dad decided to save some money (or possibly some time) and made his own.  It's a very simple mechanism, there is really nothing special to it.  One side doesn't move and the other side does, and with it you're able to press the cups for a headset into a frame.

     I'm very happy to have these.  I'm going to keep them for as long as I live, and every time I use one, I'll remember my parent's bike shop that I spent time in as a kid, occasionally watching my dad fix bikes as I tried to sneak into his parts bins to play with the ball bearings.