Put pegs on my bmx and did my first grind. Not pretty, but made me wonder why it took so long to put pegs on.
Promised my cross bike I’d ride it soon.
Stuck the Cambium test saddle on my bike today. Seems nice at first ass contact, the width and uptight seating balances out the Cambium stiffness. The stupid text is also color coordinated so a little less stupid looking?..
The TEST’s bold font and rakish angle are reminiscent of BMX company graphica, it looks like that’s just who made the saddle.
I’m in the middle of a weird low-competence sinkhole wherein I didn’t do any real maintenance on my bikes for months, and then paid massively for it over the last week:
-intractable flat tire on my sport touring bike, no amont of sealant will tame the beast
-many flats on the worn-out tire on my road bike, which I keep thinking I’ll be putting away for the season soon
-sport tourer’s RD cable adjuster had gotten backed way far out somehow, fiddled it back in, adjusted weirdly garbage-y shifting.
-ominous creaking from the crank/bb area of my road bike. Regreased the hub, regreased the bb/shell, regreased the chainring bolts, the pedal axles/crank threads: nothing. Checked for cracks through the drivetrain and adjoining parts of hte frame: nothing. DS pedal has a little play?
Just a bunch of small maintenance things that all piled up and then hit the steep part of the overall failure curve at the same time, which is frustrating, as it takes two bikes out of commission at once.
My LHT gets the most miles and about 3000 miles ago I replaced damn near every wear part on the bike. That made for a pretty nice run of tire pressure/chain lube/cable tension adjustments but within the last month or two I’ve had to start replacing everything again. I can’t really decide whether it’s better to have all that stuff relatively synced up or not.
for me things wear out at different times. I burn through rear tires pretty quickly because I am huge and my bike is under active power almost the entire time I’m riding it, but I never seem to wear out cassettes. Who knows.
I’m thinking I need to get back into a regularly scheduled monthly repair time - setting aside two or three hours to go over everything.
overhauled the CK R45 on the road bike during lunch. Seemed ok internally. Also oiled the rear qr, which seems to have fixed the ominous creaking almost immediately. GOOD THING I CHECKED THAT LAST LIKE A BIKE GENIUS
I suggest checking a few more things and servicing them in the process. That way the QR will no longer be the last thing you checked.
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Ooh good point, except that I’ve set aside some time on the weekend of the 27th for a big bike overhaul, so I guess everything will be fine until then? Is that a formal cause or an efficient cause?
I tried to sell it to my wife last night that her gardening was a lot like my bike building/maintenance. You have to keep on top of it or get bogged down. We moved into the city because she wasn’t happy with the amount of gardening she was doing in the country,
but ever since we have been here she has just put down more and more garden. It looks great but she complains about it in the same way that I do about maintaining my bikes. In the last 3 nights. I have swapped three rear tires on three wheels on two bikes. Removed a switched dynamo harness. Swapped a 10 speed cluster with an 8 speed. Swapped the RTPS on my wifes bike with some Hommages. She went through a brief stage of riding, about 10 years ago
and her bike had the old green Michelin Comps that I used to race on, currently on my Mongoose. She got a lot of comments on the green tires and she seemed to enjoy that aspect.
Hopefully the new Hommage’s will do the same for her. They do look pretty nice. No idea what they will feel like. I like the RTP’s myself, but not inspiring for her off-road. I also put some Mallets on the Litespeed, as they have a large platform. If we ride together, I ride the Tallboy, she the Litespeed, and we swap when we get to technical stuff. I also put some older shittier Mallets on the Tallboy. That way I can be clipped. Also the Tallboy has the dropper, which she loves.
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Wow look at that RaRe StEm!!!
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road the overhauled road bike ysterday evening.
For all Chris King’s faults as a company, they make components that can really shine with a bit of polish. I opened and serviced both hubs and the bb, and even with my lackadaisical maintenance schedule, everything just needed a quick wipe and a dab of grease. Oh, except the cassette interface splines, I had to gently file down a few high spots to get the tray of big cogs off.
Also it was almost definitely the rear qr creaking. It legit sounded the same as a frame with a massive crack at the seattube/bb shell, but two drops of Tri Flow fixed it entirely.
Put a sunlite rack and orcbag on it
Swapped 2.3 SBH’s for powerblocks and a jank fender in the back
Hard to see but the rear bag is bolted to a minoura buttrocket mount that’s been flipped upside down, gives me more fat thigh room than and less sway than just strapping to the saddle rails.
Gonna replace the 11-34 with an 11-28 now that I’m just riding it around town and not so much in the woods.
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I swapped my Soma fork and Jones bars out for a Kona fork and VO Klunker bars.
Those bars are giving me all of it and I await the wave of hatred from the experts here at tarck.
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You won’t get an ounce of hatred from me. That looks bad ass.
It’s pretty fucking fun. My takeaway is that some bikes are better without a basket.
But maybe it’s too on trend? I’m going to put knobbies as soon as it snows.
I want those bars on my fat chance. Sick.
Dope as heck