I sold off the Trek 660 I had a brief dalliance with. I decided I couldn't afford another bike that wouldn't take a rack, so I fixed this thing up a bit and let it go.
Here's what was done to it: -removed weird "Grip Shift" shifter and returned it to normal Shimano indexed downtube shifter -trued and rewrapped the wheels (they were blowing tubes due to mangled rim tape) -replaced the Shimano 600 "tricolor" derailleurs with another set of 600 SIS derailleurs I procured as I was coveting the ones it came with for my impending Paramount re-conversion (back to a road bike from single speed). Got the shifting humming along well with the replacement stuff -rewrapped the bars -gave a vigorous cleaning
It ended up being a quite nice looking bike and I think it will make someone happy for a long time to come!
Here's the more or less original setup (I actually changed the seat right off and had some temporary wheels on there):
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.
Long time no posts! I've been remodeling my kitchen and it hasn't left a whole lot of time for anything besides (kind of) keeping up with work.
I've begun helping out with moderation duties at the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry over the last couple of weeks. It's a community maintained site for reporting stolen bikes which offers a pretty coherent set of questions and information one must fill out and then posts it in a standardized fashion.
One thing it makes you realize is that there are A LOT of bikes stolen in Chicago! I mean A LOT! I would assume that perhaps no more than maybe 10-ish percent of stolen bikes end up on this list, and there are so far maybe 30 or so posts per week, so do the math.
Another quick thing you'll notice if you look through it is that using a cable lock is the very easiest way to have your bike stolen. These things can be cut through in about 5 to 10 seconds with a big, honking pair of cable cutters. Use at least a U-lock. Bikes are still stolen with U-locks, but it is almost always a situation where the bike was left unattended for at least some hours.
Be careful out there, there ain't a lot of civilized behavior going on out on the streets of Chicago!
Here's another gem from Craigslist. I know the text is pretty small to read, so here it is in all it's glory:
Ultra Hip Hipster Bar for Your Fixie - steel is real!
Make your already hip hipster ride hipper with these ultra hip short bars. 13.5cm across which is enough room for a babies (sic) hand or a little less than half an Oury grip (and please see my picture of the shortest bar I've ever seen here, which is actually exactly this described setup! Hee hee!). Steel Bar. 110mm, 1" threadless, 10 degree rise stem.
It just carries on in all sorts of ways, except that sometimes the school bullies end up carrying a badge and a gun. Thanks goodness for video cameras or this would have just been another case of "his word vs. mine." Also, please read about the report this officer filed regarding this incident.
I thought I had done a post about this particular ride, but I just poked around and realized not. Here's the story of my Takara frankenbike. I got this thing for $100, pretty out of tune, but basically sound. I think it's from 1976, pretty heavy steel tubing, large frame (maybe 63cm?) but kind of a classy ride, Suntour bar end shifters, sexy styling, pretty good geometry (a concept which I feel like I'm starting to get a bit of a grip on finally). Here's a before pic:
I ended up just doing a big cleanup on it to start. Plenty of old gunk/tar/hard grease around to remove. Next I needed to lose some weight, so I did the following: -swapped the wheels (some old Arayas with pretty heavy hubs) for a pair of 27" Rigida rims on Maillard hubs from a Trek 500. This made a big difference, aesthetically as well as weight-wise. I also removed the front derailleur, deciding that a 5 speed would be just fine for city riding. I left the front small chainring on, just removing the chainguard, so I can still do a manual "shift" up front if I suddenly need to climb a little mountain or something. I put a new upright stem on it. Not much to choose from here, I happened to have a stem from Harris Cyclery for the older 13/16" size around, it's not really very light, but probably a bit lighter than what was on there. I put on some nice Nitto drop bullhorn bars and some DiaCompe brake levers I had around. Also swapped out a nice lightweight saddle that I had picked up on the cheap a couple months back. It turned out pretty darned nice. Still probably weighs about 28 lbs., but I probably got it down to that from 32 originally. It's a remarkably fast ride for the weight. Pretty fun.
I shipped it down to Austin for the (then upcoming, now current) vacation I'm on. UPS ground for a bike in a bike box is about $45. I weighed this against what I've found for road bike rentals, coming in a circa $60/$100 day and decided that a $180 investment plus $45 in shipping was a pretty good deal. I can leave it at my brother's place down here and it'll just keep on paying off!
However, I must confess that I'm already thinking of selling it and moving on. I'm starting to feel like the person who finds the squirrel with a broken leg, mends it and then sets the little gal free. Or else like a catch and release fisherman. It's fun to get something all spiffed up and ride it around, but I always need a new project or experience shortly thereafter. Not terribly profitable, the used bike market (at least not for me!), but I feel like I more or less keep spending the same few hundred dollars over and over. More to follow, to be sure!
Well, I had worse than a flat as it turned out. I actually bent my "bombproof" Velocity deep V rim. Crappy. I think I was able to more or less fix it by using a crescent closed down to just the rim wall thickness and gently, slowly bending it back out. It wasn't terrible, and I got it pretty straight and lightly sanded out the little bite marks from the wrench. I figure at least I'll ride it until I screw it up again and then perhaps I'll get a new one. Such is life in the city I reckon.
I did get another bike at the beginning of the weekend. It's an '89 Trek 660. Pretty nice bike. It was kind of hodge-podged by the previous owner. Was supposed to have an all Shimano 600/Ultegra group, but a lot of it is Shimano 105 now. It's also got a weird "gripshift" rear derailleur shifter thing mounted on the end of the drop bars, kind of looks like a little mini beer koozy stuck on there. I have been riding it around for the last 4 days. I think I'll probably just ride it for a while and then sell it again after making it prettier/tuned up (it came with flats and kind of ratty bar tape and misaligned front derailleur). I have decided to turn my Paramount back into a normal road bike and then use my single speed wheels on an as-yet-unknown frame that can take a rack and fenders. It's a nice ride though.
I actually had a funny first ride on this bike. I had to literally get home from buying it, throw an unproven set of wheels on it (it came with flats and I had another set I had picked up on the cheap sometime earlier) and head downtown due to my previous day's rim bend on the Paramount.
I was screwing along down Milwaukee Ave. making good time and after a couple of miles, I noticed that the front tire had a curious bulge/bend thing going on. The tire was deforming and I was thinking "this is not going to get me downtown!" Right past Division (going SE), I noticed a window with a bunch of bikes in it. I stopped and walked the bike back down the sidewalk to the front of Ride bike shop. The proprietor, Ron, walked out and took a look at me and my front tire blew up right at that moment with a big "bang!" Pretty good timing. Anyway, he sorted me out with a used front tire for a few bucks and I was back on my way in about 10 minutes. Thanks Ron and Ride!
What I have now is a pretty janky looking bike, but I left for vacation yesterday to Austin, so I'll not be worrying about that for several days. Hooray for vacay!
