bad blogger redux

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I'm not a good blogger. Especially in the winter, which seems counterintuitive. Unless moderate S.A.D. makes one not want to blog. Not a lot of "epic" rides to go on about in the winter either. Anyway...

I finished the Paramount rebuild some time ago. It turned out really, really nice. Took it down to Austin and got some good riding in a couple of weeks ago. Here's a pic in all it's new-ish glory:



I had a whole big ordeal with the wheels. Bought some wheels from a guy on eBay who turned out to be a royal chiseler and sold me some wheels that, upon arrival, turned out to be fairly damaged in ways that all his super detailed pictures just happened not to picture! Quelle surprise! The rear axle was bent. Someone who had no idea how to use a tire lever (Rule 1: Don't use a steel one with alloy rims!) had mangled parts of the front rim and someone without the proper spoke tool had made a big mess of a few of the spoke nipples, and these were some exotic Shimanos with the nipples on the hub and whatnot. I had to have several pointless emails with the guy to find out that he had no interest whatsoever in taking responsibility for this (though he never disputed any of the conditions I described) saying "you can't expect them to be perfect, they are used wheels" and other such pablum. I don't expect perfect, just AS DESCRIBED YOU ASS! Anyway, I had to do a full-court eBay dispute on this guy. Lengthy explanation, photos, even a video on youtube



showing the messed up rotation of the bent axle.

In the end I, of course, prevailed (actually, I was pretty surprised I prevailed, but boy did it feel good! What a schmuck!). I got my money back and just in the nick of time found a terrific set of 09 Mavic Aksiums for sale on CL. Nice local guy from the Spidermonkey racing team selling them for $150, in perfect condition, nice normal spokes/nipples, easy to maintain, very attractive, etc. Things seem to work out most of the time. I got them the afternoon before departure, went home and built the bike until about 10 at night, finished, took it apart and put it in a box. It went down on the flight with me uneventfully.

Didn't get to ride the first full day as it was raining like the flood for the entire day. Halfway through Saturday morning though, it cleared up and I took off. Some weird noises eventually led me to discover that I was light a shim for the rear cassette, it was jangling around. Fortunately it was rideable and I rode downtown to Mellow Johnny's where a nice fellow fixed me right up for $7 while I had a coffee. After that, fuggedabahdit! I was tearing up the place. I missed this bike!!! Ended up riding around with the missus and mi hermano for another 17 or so miles that day. S on her newly reminted Trek 500.



Looking good, right?! Ready for some hilly city riding with that triple on the front.

Went out with my pal Jason and some of his buddies for an east of Austin trek into the sticks. We headed out from south Austin and went out through Buda and Webberville and such. Ended up doing 42 miles as our navigator broke a spoke on his posh Ksyrium SL wheels. Made me glad to have normal old 32 spoke 3-cross wheels. That thing went all crazy when one spoke broke, rear braking was out of the question. Fun ride and great company anyway. We were buzzed by a humorless mob of Cat 1 and 2 cyclists at one point maybe 50 deep. As long as you guys aren't having any fun out there! I'm watching you! Otherwise, just very occasional cars and a couple of dogs having a go at us. Good times, fantastic weather (a little chilly actually, but I'm definitely not complaining!).

Since my return, I have completed the morphing of the Surly Pacer into someone else's future bike. Going through the process of estrangement with my once trusty steed. Shorn of it's preferred grupo, it's sort of alien and offputting through no fault of it's own. We had many good miles together, but it's time to move on. Still my daily ride for maybe another week though. Still pretty ripping too. I must have hit 24 mph on the way home up Kedzie this eve.

My new Long Haul Trucker frame is coming into my hands tomorrow. The nice folks over at Smart Bike Parts are even giving it a free frame saver treatment for me. Thanks guys! I think it will take me about a week to get this built up. Will be posting!

Austin vay-kay

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I almost plum forgot to write a little bit about my newest addition to the family. When I got to Austin for the vacation we took in early August, I had shipped down the Takara from a few posts ago to use and keep with my brother down there. Well, I rode that for a couple of days, but then I noticed a CL ad for a bike I had actually been trying to get my brother to buy was still hanging around. It was for a Felt 85 and was a sort of "must sell!" type deal and seemed pretty cheap already. I think he was asking $400 for it. It's an aluminum road bike, circa mid-90s maybe? Well, I wrote the guy telling him that I wasn't really in the market per se, but perhaps I could cough up $360. He went for it. Why it was so hard to sell that bike, I have no idea! It's terrific! It has a Shimano Sora group on it, which is a pretty low end group for them, but it's still just a super nice zippy light racing bike. My first aluminum road bike. I only got to ride it for about 4 days, but it was SO fun. I actually thought about shipping in back to Chicago to continue with the fun, but decided it'd be nice to not have to procure another bike for my time in Austin. I ended up being able to sell the Takara to a good old friend of mine currently living in Paris, but who comes back to Austin pretty regular and wanted a bike to keep there as well.

I took this bike on one good solo 10 mile ride. Heading west on a bike trail over the MoPac expressway onto Far West Blvd. a well-to-do-ish hilly thoroughfare, I got my first experience with the Shimano STI levers or "brifters" (brake shifters) as, I believe, Sheldon Brown tagged them. This is really an efficient way to ride a bike! It's like you are just joined to it, with all controls immediately in your hands at all times. I reached about the 4.5 mile mark at a steep downhill grade that leads on out of town and got up to about 35 mph according to the computer. What a rush! However, about half a mile down the hill, I realized I'd have to make it all the way back up and needed to be ready for an evening out in about an hour, so I turned back. I had to go all the way to the granniest of granny gears with this 24-speed drivetrain to crawl back up at around 7mph. I got my exercise though!

I'm looking forward to taking some long, hilly rides on this bike for sometime to come. I think I will have to go to some sort of shoe/cleat setup pretty soon though, as I got stuck in the rather awkward toe clips on this bike a couple of times throughout the 4 days of riding it, leading to comical slow-motion flop-overs at a couple of stops!

Overall the trip to Austin was quite enjoyable sans car. We rode an average of about 15 miles per day in temperatures at or near 100 degrees. It was a good workout even with pretty leisurely paces. Austin is definitely ramping up on some off-street bike trails, though it still falls far short of places like Madison, WI, in which off-street bike travel is really a quite feasible way to get around all over town. Chicago still has a long way to go before we'll see anything more significant than painted bike lanes which also serve as expressways for the occasional psychotic car driver and parking lanes for service vehicles.

Here is a picture of the Felt:



Also, here's my Austin friend Adam's really nice Surly Long Haul Trucker. He's setup with a sort of urban/randonneur style. This was the first time I've seen the "Midge" bar, which is kind of a cross between a drop bar and a moustache bar, or really a drop bar with the drops flared out at a 45 degree angle rather than straight down. He's set up with cross levers in their intended "interrupter" fashion, as secondary brake levers (these are very much in favor today as primary brake levers for all manner of city bike/fixie, etc. conversions. Nice bar-end shifting too.

A pretty sweet ride, all in all: