Errandonnee 2014

March 3, 2014

My winter bike parked outside of work.

Back at work after running some errands.



Home at last

 


    Destination

• Work, bike shop, lunch
• I rode my bike to work. During my lunch hour I went out to pick up some tire sealant at my LBS and some lunch at Subway. I finally arrived home 13 hours later.
• Observations -  The Serfas 500 light does a great job lighting my way in the dark.
• Total Miles - 30

March 10, 2014

Poised to go to the store and return some bottles

High security at the Big Y

Just the essentials, beer, coffee and milk

   
  Destination

• Grocery store; Big Y and A&P package store.
• I learned how much I can fit in my front basket with a six pack.
• Miles - 5

March 12, 2014



Destination

• Personal Care - Chiropractor
• Wild Card - Staples
• Observed - Geese eating something green in the ice.
•  Miles - 16





   March 16, 2014

Bike parking at Stop & Shop

All loaded, 60 lbs or so

    Destination

• Grocery store - Stop & Shop in Old Saybrook, CT
• Observation - My bike is sweet!
• Miles - 10       

March 18, 2014

        

My Soma San Marcos parked at work after running a few errands during lunch

Stopped at the library on the way home from work



 Back home at 6:30 PM

    Destination

• Work and library
• Observations - The library has lots of DVD's but they're difficult to select without using the computer catalog.
• Miles - 23

March 19, 2014



Stopped at Pedal Power for their grand opening

Destination

• Bike shop and personal care, (chiropractor) again
• Observations - Head winds really stink.
• Miles - 16

                             Total Miles - 100

1984 Trek 500 Series

I picked up a 1984 Trek 500 at bike show/swap in Dudley. At that time the bike was built as a fixie which didn't interest me at all. So I purchased the bike without its wheels and chain. It had bull handlebars, an inverse brake lever and track pedals.
Mostly what I wanted was the frame. 

The bikes original configuration was a drop barred sport bike. It came in two colors, mariner blue and pewter as pictured below. Mine is blue. Now that the bike is in at least its third configuration very little from its original build remains. I think the headset is the only original component left.

I built up the Trek 500 to be my winter ride. It's worked out fairly well. The tires could use a little more width but you can only use as wide of a tire as the bike will allow.  The only studded tire I found that would fit was Schwalbe's 30 mm snow tire. It doesn't have as many studs as their 35 mm Marathon Winter tires, but sometimes I think that's a good thing since the 30 mm snow tires are slow enough. The sidewalls have a nice reflective coating.  When I don't have the studded tires mounted I use Soma's New Express 32 mm terracotta tires. 

In addition to studded tires, I'm using a Nexus 8 speed internal gear hub with a kick brake. This set up has worked very nicely allowing me to mostly just ride and not worry about cleaning off the bike after every sloppy ride. I have a center pull brake on the front but it's pretty useless when conditions are wet and icey. 

The cockpit consists of a 90 mm Nitto Technomic stem which is quite pretty to look at when you're riding. I only mention that because Grant Peterson has pointed out the importance of a good looking stem since its in your field of vision most of the time. Anyway the rest of the cockpit is Velo Orange's ever so difficult to pronounce handlebars VO Montmartre, which are 42 cm wide. If I had to do it again I would select their Left Bank handlebar which is 49 cm wide with a little bit of flare in the grip area. 

An inverse brake lever controls the front brake and a JTek bar-end shifter allows easy logical shifting of the Nexus hub.
Logical because you shift up to move to a higher gear and down to move to lower gear.

To keep the road crud off of me, I mounted a pair of SKS Longboards. I've found the bear claw pedals to be quite comfortable and grippy, plus I think they look cool. To finish the build I added a Brooks b68 in honey with matching honey bar tape, and a Wald 137 basket. 

A couple of notes: Before I mounted the basket I had a funky old rack that I hacked to make a light sort of porteur rack. I wasn't crazy about the look of it but I think it worked better than the basket in regards to the amount of weight and volume it held. Ultimately I would like to put a real porteur rack on, if I can find one that isn't too heavy or expensive, this is my dilemma. Of all the bikes I own, this one handles front loads the best. Probably due to its mid-trail geometry, somewhere in the mid forties.

Truth be told I'm not that wild about the Brooks handlebar tape. It is difficult to work with and it offers no cushion. The last bit of problem I've been having is a common one with Brooks saddles.  I need more set back even though I am using the VO long set back seat post, it's still not enough. I am constantly pushing back. Raising the saddle height has helped a little. 

There maybe some changes made regarding the saddle set back, front rack and maybe the handlebars as I continue to tweek the fit.

So Long Febuary, Hello March

Everyone I know feels the same way, we've all had it with winter. Here in Connecticut we thankfully dodged the bullet on Monday, while the Mid-Atlantic region got slammed with snow. On the roads the snow has receded from most of the shoulders, so riding a bike is much easier. Here in Southeast Connecticut most of the landscape remains covered with at least 6 inches of hard snow. 

Since March began, I'm trying to bike commute to work more frequently than I did the past two months. On both Sat. 3 -1 & Tues. 3 - 4 I left for work on my winter bike with the temps looming around 9 -10 degree's. Fortunately it wasn't windy on either of those days. Today we've made it into the 40', so 

hopefully that will be the new trend.

It's not just the cold and the frozen cruddy looking stuff along the roadsides, and the never ending shoveling, but it's also the grey dreary sky's day in and day out, that our getting really old.  

The stores all think it's spring, replacing winter clothing for short sleeve shirts, shorts, and bathing suits.  About a month ago toe warmers became hard to find. Baseball mitts and bats replaced them, so I ordered a lg. box from Amazon today. I can ride with just my shoes when its in the forties but below that I need neoprene booties and or toe warmers.

 

Here is a picture of the Old Lyme town beach parking lot on Feb 2nd. Under the snow is rutted ice, which I found virtually unridable.

13 days later the same parking lot after some rain and a couple of warm days.

This weekend we spring ahead, longer days yea, but it seems early this year.

Sam Hillborne

Love the sage blue color and the build specs on this Rivendell,Sam Hillborne. Truly a great "country bike".

                                         
   

Amtrak and Bicycles

I've recently come across a lot of discussions about multimodal bicycle travel via train, Amtrak mostly. I of course have had my own problems trying to use Amtrak on a more recent bike tour, but that's a story for another time.

One of the discussions that first came across my radar was a post by  Off The Beaten Path, A Winter Adventure . Most of the discussion about bikes and trains took place in the comments section. The gist of it was how limited or in some cases completely nonexistant bike access is on Amtrak.

Image Source: http://cliffsrailpictures.smugmug.com

A post at bikeportland.org describes an encounter on Amtrak's Texas Eagle, experienced by writer Ely Blue and publisher / filmmaker Joel Beil. For a full account click on the link. A brief summary of the story goes like this: They were traveling overnight on a sleeper car with their Brompton folding bicycles brought on board as carryon baggage. In the middle of the night they were awakened and berated for doing just that. After a heated discussion it was agreed that the attendant would put the Bromptons in the baggage car.

                                                     Image Source - harriscyclery.net

For the record folding bikes are allowed as carryon baggage. It appears that it is not uncommon for Amtrak employees to be unaware of their policies regarding bikes. Blue states this inconsistancy as the reason they purchased the folding bikes. Most of Amtrak's trains don't allow bicycles accept for a limited number of trains on certain lines, which require the bike to be boxed and checked as baggage.

BikePortland.org posted a follow up;
Amtrak states that folding bicycles are always allowed onboard. They will be lauching a new program that hopefully willl allow all employees to keep up with the latest policies regarding bicycles. If this occurs the multimodal bike tourist won't be left at the mercy of each Amtrak employee they encounter.

Adventure Cyling Association is advocating for better service for bicyclist by joining Amtrak's new task force with other bike adovocacy groups. The focus is to expand bicycle service on Amtrak lines. For more info check out these links:
http://www.adventurecycling.org/resources/blog/positive-amtrak-news/

http://www.adventurecycling.org/resources/blog/new-developments-for-bicycle-services-on-amtrak/

In the state of Connecticut there aren't any Amtrak trains that allow bikes to be checked as baggage or even to be shipped via train. The Shoreline East commuter train does allow bikes to be rolled on! Here is a copy of their policy: Bicycles are permitted on board SLE trains operating between New Haven and New London (including all intermediate stations) only. All bicycles must be stored in a safe and secure manner to allow emergency egress by passengers. The cyclist should remain in close proximity to the bicycle, and must obey instructions of the train crew.

I read this as bikes must be somehow secured at the end of the cars where there is more space and the bicyclist must sit in a near by seat because they don't want to be responsible for your bike. The Part about obeying train crew instructions  seems ambiguous to me and possible code for being denied access.

Since this post is getting long I'll sign off for now. Stay tuned for more to follow.

Back After Two Years

Yes its been 2 years since I've posted anything to this blog. What happened?  It's been so long that I don't really remember. I do know that writing a blog requires commitment and more work than you might think and sometimes you just get tired of posting and run out of ideas. Well the dry spell is over and lots has happened since I last posted.

First of all the Phillips Project has gotten as far as some cleaning and a lot of disassembly. The poor thing has been lying in pieces for about 2 years. Not to worry though, I will get it done one of these days. There's just too much other stuff to do first.

Part of the Phillips tear down included a stuck stem

Like any good bike geek the fleet has changed quite a bit in the last 2 years. The Cannondale Synapse was stolen right out of my garage back in August of 2012. 

Cannondale Synapse Feb. 2012

What a horrible feeling to walk into your garage, look at the spot where you last left your bike only to find its gone! You start to look around as if you might not remember where you last left your bike. Thank goodness for home owners insurance. I was in the process of having a new bike built and was planning on selling the Cannondale. In the end I probably got more money from the insurance company than I could have sold the bike for.  Still it was bothersome that someone came onto my property and took my bike while I was inside my home.

I had a tag sale a week earlier and had moved everything that wasn't for sale (including the Cannondale) to the back of the garage. That way I didn't have to try to drag everything out in the early morning before all the early birds showed up. Note to self, always conceal your valuable, and desirable stuff from dishonest people that might be scoping out your tag sale for nefarious reasons. Also always keep the garage locked.

The Phillips Project

1964 Phillips 3 speed

Last spring a coworker gave me a Phillips roadster that had been hanging in her grandfathers basement for as long as she could remember.

The Sturmey Archer hub says "64" which is a pretty accurate way to ID the year of manufacture on an old roadster. 

The front hub looks to be an old dyno hub. I will definitely see if I can improve on that fender line ;)

I love the Phillips chainring but I'm not so wild about those old cotter cranks

.

The headbadge is definitely one of the cooler ones I've come across. I've done a bit of searching online and I haven't found any Phillips bikes with the sword on the seat tube that you can just barely see in the photo above.

I doubt I will be able to find another one of these pedals in new old stock condition. I might just have to go with plain block pedals.

That pedal doesn't quite look right, does it? In case you didn't notice in the first picture the seat-post and saddle are missing as well.

There's a lot of surface rust and oxidation on this old bike, I see a lot of steel wool in my future.

I haven't found any of these old hand grips on ebay or even any pictures of bikes with grips like that. I think I've got my work cut out for me with this one. My plan is to restore the bike to as close to original working order as I can over the course of this winter.