No Biking Weekend
Although many of my friends were out having fun riding this long weekend, I was working around the house. It's not so bad as it sounds. After some exterior fun hacking away at the ice against the basement door, to clear it enough that it doesn't melt into the house, I came inside and secluded myself in the basement doing all the little tasks that have been piling up. The first thing I did was to unplug the kids video game player and plug in my old stereo. It hasn't been used since we moved here 4 years ago. Next I dug out my old albums and proceeded to geeze my way through the 80s and 90s while I worked. Psychedelic Furs, Stan Ridgeway, Joe Jackson, Alan Parsons Project, The Damned, Vangelis, Suzanne Vega, Colin James Hay (Men at Work) and lots more. Lots of non-cycling cleaning and sorting of basement contents followed, interspersed with both kids rocking to the oldies with me while they tried a few craft projects, and my own little bike projects.
I pulled all the components off the Fuji (RIP). Compadre Rob gave me a Hercules frame to try out. It has a small bulge in the fork steereer tube up at the very top. The bulge is above where the race sits and way above where the stem would insert to, up by the top locknut about 1cm from the top of the steerer. I took an old race and screwed it off and on with pliers a couple of times, then chased the threads. The race and locknuts go on by hand now, so I'm going to give it a try building it up. I spread the rear stays to 130, using the Sheldon Brown method. I'm going to have to track down some smaller tires, though. The 37s I have don't fit, let alone with fenders. If I keep the fenders I'll probably have to go with 28s, but I'll try 32s first. I'll also have to track down the right seatpost. Its not a 25.8, nor a 27, so It could be 26, 26.4, 26.6 or 26.8. The headtube and seat tube on this size 59 bike are much smaller than the old 64cm fuji. My fuji fork was about 3 inches too long. The top tube lengths are about the same, so if I can get the bars and saddle up high enough things should be OK.
I gave the Quickbeam a good cleaning. She's so pretty. On the Diamondback I changed (again) the chainring, this time to a 34t. This gives me a pretty good 34x20 gearing.
There may be good news forthcoming about a new bike. I hesitate to jinx myself yet. Just think 29"er...
I pulled all the components off the Fuji (RIP). Compadre Rob gave me a Hercules frame to try out. It has a small bulge in the fork steereer tube up at the very top. The bulge is above where the race sits and way above where the stem would insert to, up by the top locknut about 1cm from the top of the steerer. I took an old race and screwed it off and on with pliers a couple of times, then chased the threads. The race and locknuts go on by hand now, so I'm going to give it a try building it up. I spread the rear stays to 130, using the Sheldon Brown method. I'm going to have to track down some smaller tires, though. The 37s I have don't fit, let alone with fenders. If I keep the fenders I'll probably have to go with 28s, but I'll try 32s first. I'll also have to track down the right seatpost. Its not a 25.8, nor a 27, so It could be 26, 26.4, 26.6 or 26.8. The headtube and seat tube on this size 59 bike are much smaller than the old 64cm fuji. My fuji fork was about 3 inches too long. The top tube lengths are about the same, so if I can get the bars and saddle up high enough things should be OK.
I gave the Quickbeam a good cleaning. She's so pretty. On the Diamondback I changed (again) the chainring, this time to a 34t. This gives me a pretty good 34x20 gearing.
There may be good news forthcoming about a new bike. I hesitate to jinx myself yet. Just think 29"er...
posted by Hjalti at 12:33 PM
1 Comments:
Getting stuff done and time travelling through music -- perfect! And you were listening to a bunch of music I love.
"It's a one time thing. It just -- happens -- a lot.
Walk with me and we shall see what we have got."
Post a Comment
<< Home