Spring Cleaning

I decided to give my touring/randonneuring bike complete overhaul this spring. Pretty much giving it the works:

• New headset (Chris King)
• New bottom bracket (Wheels Manufacturing w/ angular contact bearing)
• New cables and housing (Jagwire Sport)
• New bar tape (Fizik)
• New stem (Dimension)
• New bell (Crane)
• New chain (KMC 10.93)
• New brake pads (Avid metallic)
• Service rotors
• Service hubs
• True and tension wheels
• Service pedals
• Frame saver treatment
• Wax frame and fork

I’m planning to attempt a full SR series, a 1,000k, plus a few hundred training miles so I want it to be in good shape for the season.

Motobecane Jury Townie

I finally finished the Motobecane Jury Townie I have been working on for a while and took it for a shakedown ride this morning. This will be my early morning and bad weather bike. It has Sturmey-Archer drum brakes, 3-speed rear hub, a dynamo front hub, Busch & Muller dynamo lighting and Honjo Aluminium fenders with Gilles Berthoud mudflaps, saddle and saddlebag.

There are a couple of things that I think turned out pretty well and are kinda cool.

I'm using wine corks as spacers for the rear fender. I used a hacksaw to cut the corks to the right length and a rotary tool with a sanding bit to shape both ends to fit the frame and the fender. I drilled a hole in the middle of the cork for the bolt, then cut the bolts to the right length with a cutoff wheel on the rotary tool. If that sounds time consuming. It was.

The other thing that I think turned out well was the electrical for the dynamo powered lights. The wire from the hub dynamo is routed to the headlight through the drainage holes in the right fork. The shift cable is sheathed in shrink wrap and the wire to the tail light runs through there. I put a grommet in the fender for the wire, then ran the wire inside the fender and secured it with HVAC foil tape back to the fender mounted tail light. You can't see inside the fenders, but I also cut down all the bolts so they are flush with the nut.

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The bike's not particularly fast, but it's fine for the way I'm planning to use it.

Christmas in Breckenridge 2016

We just got back from a week in Breckenridge with the extended family. Kayla made an awesome video again this year to commemorate the trip.

Free Christmas Tree

I posted this on Craigslist last weekend

and got over 50 responses in just a few hours. My wife, Ann Marie promised it to the first person who called. She came to pick it up the next morning and sent me this note along with a picture of her 6 little kids decorating the tree later that day.

 My kids loved it they said that we have never had a beautiful tree as this one. Thank you. Merry Christmas to you.

Merry Christmas! 

Ski Tuning

I got tired of paying the ski shop sixty bucks a year to tune my skis so I decided to buy all the tools and do it myself. Very satisfying. I now realize that the ski shop was using cheap wax and doing a crappy job sharpening the edges.

My Bikes

Why does anybody need 10 bikes?

2014 Wabi Lightening SE

Fixed gear workout bike. I probably ride this bike more than all the others combined. Perfect for 1-3 hour rides on the pavement. OK for longer rides too. No fenders so I don’t really like riding it in the rain. I rode a Basso track bike with clinchers and no brakes all through college and like an idiot sold it for two hundred bucks. The Wabi is a better bike for a middle-aged guy like me anyway.

2012 Jamis Aurora Elite
Long distance bike. Any ride over 80 miles or so I typically use this bike. I got it a few years ago on clearance to try randonneuring without spending the money on a rando-specific bike. Two full Super Randonneur (SR) series on this bike.

1990 Schwinn KOM S7
I bought this new, and it was my main mountain bike through the early 90’s. Turned it into a Burley puller when I had kids in the late 90’s. Now it’s my winter bike. I ride it with studded tires whenever the temps are below freezing, so this bike sees a lot of action from November through March.

1990 Schwinn Cruiser
Train station bike. I have about a mile and a half commute to the train station and use this bike for that commute year round. I have been using it this way since 1992 when I got my first job out of college. I oil the chain a couple times a year and repack the hubs every couple of years.

1989 Miyata Ridge Runner Team (Dirt Drop)
This is basically my mountain bike. The off-road trails in Chicagoland are pretty tame so suspension is not required. One of my other hobbies is off-road motorcycles, so if I go to the trouble of driving someplace to ride, I pull a trailer full of dirt bikes.

1992 Santana Fusion Tandem
I ride this with my wife for lunch dates on the weekends in the summer since she is way too slow to keep up with me on her own bike

1981 Trek 614
Currently equipped with fenders and a rack, this is my rain bike and my “around-town-bike” because I don’t really care if anything happens to it. My brother in law bought this new and abused it for 10 years before hanging it in his garage for the next 20 then giving it to me to restore. It’s still a pretty nice bike and probably all anyone really needs.

Rivendell Sam Hillborne
I saw this on craigslist a few years ago and just couldn’t pass it up. I use it for longish rides (50-70 mi) on mixed surfaces. Perfect for this use, and the bike I would keep if I could only keep one bike.

Motobecane Jury
I’m still building this bike around a set of Sturmey Archer drum brake hubs with a 3 speed in the back and a dynamo in the front. With fenders and lights this will be my foul weather bike with studded tires in the winter and paselas for rainy days during the warmer months.

1985 Koga Miyata Proracer-S
Full dura ace 80's steel race bike.