I’ve been doing a lot of bike wrenching and bike riding this last week and have discovered a few things.
1. Fixed off-road is friggin’ awesome.
I went riding with Topanga Creek Bicycles on Sunday morning on an easy-paced 20-mile ramble along the nearby fire roads of Topanga Canyon and Dirt Mulholland. There was nothing really technical, but a fair amount of climbing. One of the bike projects I’d had in mind since… Japan, I guess, was building up a fixed cross bike using a Surly Dingle Cog for both off- and on- road duty. Well, I finally got that bike together and this was its maiden dirt voyage. The bike climbs like a champ. Like a serious mountain goat. So awesome. This was countered, however, by my perhaps over-cautious downhill descents. I was running slicks so I didn’t want to wipe out, and yet while I came close a few times I was able to recover thanks to the feedback from the fixed wheel.
Also, it was an absolutely gorgeous day. I needed that ride if only to get out of the city for a little while. Here’s a crappy iPhone pic. Forgot to bring a real camera.
2. You can remove a front derailleur without breaking the chain.
How did I not discover this until now? The mechanism is so obvious. As a result of this newly acquired knowledge, I spent last night moving derailleurs around between bikes testing different crank/derailleur combinations. It’s something I’d been meaning to do but put off because I thought it was going to be too much trouble.
3. Hooray for downtube shifters!
I had always been more of a bar-end shifter kind of guy, but liked the look of downtube shifters for their simplicity and elegance. Well, the indexing on my bar-end shifters for my main ride had been feeling funny as of late. I think it’s because I had been running my cable housing underneath my entire handlebar length instead of having the cables come out the front as usual. The extra housing length and bends were probably causing too much friction. At any rate, I had a pair of Suntour downtube friction shifters sitting in my parts box so rather than fiddle with the bar-ends I put those on. So pretty. So simple. So pleasant. I’m still a fan of my bar-ends. I’m saving them for one of my next bicycle projects – putting dirt drop handlebars on my mountain bike.
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Comments ( 3 )
do you still have bicycle district spoke cards?
touke cyclist added these pithy words on
Nov 29 09 at
3:53 pm
I’ve got a few left. Do you want one? I’ll trade ya for another spoke card.
Jon added these pithy words on
Nov 29 09 at
5:03 pm
vittoria hyper randonneur is my fave. fast,light, and with a bit of flat protection. the 700×38 does measure an honest 38mm and 39mm on my respective touring rims
mike added these pithy words on
Feb 26 10 at
9:42 pm
