More bike shit
I’m teaching a course this coming Saturday. It’s a hands-on, how-to thing for making church web sites. Last night I decided to junk the whole thing and start over again. While that simmers on the back burner for a bit, clearing some bike stuff from my head may help.
No ride today
We’re having the best autumn weather this week. It’s been seasonably cool, but the skies are clear as a bell and the winds I battled all last week have blown themselves out. But if I go for a ride today, it will be short. I want to be fully rested for tomorrow. I met a guy on BikeJournal back in August and we’ve had trouble meeting up for a ride. Tomorrow we both have the day off so we’re planning on at least a metric century—100km or 62 miles.
He lives out in Spencerport and we’re leaving early, 7:30 or so, with plans to meet up at the info kiosk on the Canalway trail at Long Pond Road at 8:30. It should be about 10 miles from home for both of us, and we’ll ride from there. His plan is to ride east on the Canalway, perhaps as far as Palmyra, then turn around and come home.
But also, I felt like shit today when I woke up. I had a headache so much like a hangover that it’s eerie. Then I nearly puked up the Tylenols I took. I came close, but kept them down. The headache is abating now, but it’s another reason to lie low today.
Preparations
I’ve neglected the bike for the past month or so. Part of it is that the newness has worn off. Part has been the weather through September. And part of it was that my brakes were dragging and all my fiddling did was make it worse. True, it’s been a much more intensive workout, but I’ve been frustrated with the brakes grinding away at the rims, and haven’t ridden as much, nor, given all I’ve been able to do is make things worse, done any maintenance whatsoever.
Thursday was payday, and it was a nice fat one. It was the first check where all the hours were at my new rate. Plus there were some extra hours in there from subbing for a co-worker. Thursday morning I went over to Full Moon Vista. They’re already on off-season hours, and weren’t open yet. I went back at noon.
I had them replace the chain and brake pads, and adjust the brakes. The chain had a few miles left in it. I could probably have gotten through to December on it. But I wanted a chain with a removable link so it would be easier to clean indoors.
The preferred method seems to be to put some degreaser in an empty pop bottle, drop in the chain and shake for a while. Fish it out with a spoke, rinse and let dry. Then thread it back on, reconnect the link and lube it up. Once I get the hang of how the removable link works, I think it will be easier.
Anyway, the bike just flew out of the shop. It felt so much easier to pedal and felt like it would coast for miles. The new chain felt smooth and quiet, and even seemed to shift better. I rode the long way around to Presbytery, locked-up and worked for the afternoon.
When I came out, even before I cleared the parking lot I heard and felt a rub, rub, rub of brakes. Damn, I thought. How did a wheel go out of true in just 10 miles after being in the shop? I know it was fine when it was on the repair stand.
That’s the nice thing about Full Moon Vista. A coffee bar is all that separates the service area from the shop. I sat there and talked with the guy while he worked on my bike. And had me come over to look at what I’d done wrong with the rear brake. Either one of us would have noticed the wheel being out-of-true.
Washing the bike Thursday night, I found out why.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I hadn’t even washed the bike since I had the new rack installed in early September. The new rack is beefy enough that it felt like it added to the structure of the bike. It felt less flexy, like the frame was absorbing less of the impact over bumps. As it turns out, the new rack adds so much structure, it’s hard to flex the frame enough to remove and reinstall the rear wheel. Fortunately, I can take the chain off now, so that wasn’t in the way.
It was when I was washing the rear wheel that I found a broken spoke. I thought my days of broken spokes were over with the new rack keeping the panniers out of them, and after the guy next door retensioned the whole wheel. The ride from downtown to Twelve Corners was uneventful. There was nothing that remotely resembled a spoke-breaking event.
I was puzzled. The only other thing might be that I wasn’t careful in locking the bike. When I lock the bike with the U-lock, I usually feed the U-lock from the stationary object, through the rear wheel and seatstays. I sometimes have to rotate the wheel a little bit to get the spokes out of the way. Jamming it through certainly has the potential for stressing spokes, I don’t remember any issues with locking the bike on Thursday either.
Yesterday, I dropped the bike off at Towner’s on the way to work. They replaced the spoke and trued the wheel. When I got home, inspecting the bike for greasy handprints, I think I found the culprit.
There were fresh gouge marks on the seatstay. Not just in the paint either. There are raised welts in the aluminum. I found matching ones on the U-lock.
Damned amateur bike thieves!
Someone had put a pry bar or something between the lock and the seatstay, and popped the spoke as they tried to lever the lock open.
I’m counting my blessings. A spoke replacement is cheap, compared to buying a whole bike. And despite the aesthetics, the aluminum won’t rust. And the bike wasn’t stripped either. All the quick-release stuff—my lights, the cyclometer, the front wheel and the saddle and seatpost—were untouched.
It was a learning experience in another way too. The frame I’m looking at for my next bike has carbon-fiber seatstays. The carbon-fiber would have snapped. I’ll remember, when locking that bike up, to lock it through the chainstays instead of the seatstays.
BTW, I didn’t notice the gouge marks while washing the bike on Thursday, because I have to take the seatpost off to fit the bike in the shower stall. Then I wash it upside down so the seat tube doesn’t fill with water. That would be very bad because the water would get in the bottom bracket and mess up the bearings there. Since the bike was upside down, and disassembly and reassembly are also done upside down, I never noticed the gouge marks on the top of the seatstays.
Decisions, decisions
I’ve been playing this one close to the vest so far, althought there’s a little hint two paragraphs up. I’d been planning to start buying parts for my new bike this month. I’ve given up on buying something pre-built.
The frame I’d like to start with is on sale at 37% off, and I have an additional 10% off coupon, but I resisted and did a somewhat smarter thing. I bought snow tires and a new seatpost instead.
By all accounts, the Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 is the best road-oriented bicycle studded snow tire in the world. It’s been called “the mother of all winter commuting tires.” The Finns know their snow, so I have no reason to doubt it. So two of these are on the way, at fifty bucks a pop.
I’m still on the fence as to whether I’ll get a second set of wheels to make it easier to switch back and forth as the weather changes. It depends, I guess, on how well the Nokians handle when the roads aren’t covered with ice and snow.
[Update: Checking the forecast for tomorrow’s ride, I see the word “snow” in it for Thursday night and Friday. Probably won’t see any this close tothe lake, but still, snow seems like a long way away from sitting here by an open window, wearing shorts and t-shirt at 11:45 at night.]
I’m tired of messing with seats and seatposts. I thought I was through with it when I bought the Terry Fly Cromoly Gel saddle. As far as the saddle goes, it’s great. I love it. The problem is back to the seatpost.
I wasn’t thinking things through when I bought the seatpost I have now. It’s certainly a nice one. Well made, 7075 aluminum tubing with a two-bolt adjustment on top. All I was thinking about was the two-bolt adjustment—and that I didn’t need carbon fiber. I didn’t think about my need for a setback seatpost.
Right now, I have the seatpost above the minimum insertion mark, which means there’s not quite enough of it still stuck in the bike frame. The 330mm post isn’t quite long enough for my height and this bike frame. I should have gone with a 410mm one.
Next, this is a straight post, and the saddle mount is right on the top. It’s a nice, two-bolt saddle mount, but again, between my build and the bike’s geometry, I need one where the mount is offset towards the rear—a setback seatpost. In fact, the suspension seatpost Giant shipped with the bike was a setback model.
So for two months now, I’ve been riding around on a great saddle that’s in the wrong place. I have it close to where it needs to be, but it’s not quite there. As with the seatpost itself, the saddle is mounted outside of safe tolerances indicated on the rails, and mounting the saddle outside of tolerances means thd seat rails could fail.
Tired of fucking with the whole seatpost/saddle thing for six months now, I bit the bullet and ordered a 410mm Thomson Elite setback seatpost in black. As wth the tires, the Thomson Elite is regarded as the best in the industry. No one asks why you bought a Thomson. They ask why you didn’t.
These are all things I’m learning, and this bike—my starter bike—is all about learning. I’ll bore you to sleep with all the dreary details of my next bike, when I start buying stuff for it.
