Education We Like to Ride Bicycles

Just had my new pedals and shoes delivered today.

 

FYI - Superstar 10mm QR if anyone is looking for one: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=3365972

 

UCI Mountain Bike World Cup 2013: Val di Sole, Italy @ 3:15 pm GMT

 

Good days racing!

 

On-one frame ?

[Edit] That will learn me to read the whole post lol, looks good dude the Scandals are on sale aren't they.

 

Broke my 40 minute target time for my 10 mile loop around town - 39 mins and 58 seconds

Average speed 23.8 km/h, elevation change 84 meters (according to map my ride)

On my hardtail of course - now to go for 38 minutes and some seconds......... gonna make my legs burn burn burn.

 

London Brighton today. Was a great day out. Managed it this year without a burst tyre which was a bonus and once I was done and back to clapham I rode the 11 miles home.

If you haven't done it yet I recommend doing that ride just for fun as its a great show of just how many and varied the cyclists in the country are.

 

Nice! Well done.

Should get a Bit-Tech Team for next year, would be up for it.

 

It goes past the end of my road, I watched it for a while today. I cannot understand why so many people were doing it on big full suspension mountain bikes!

http://www.brightonbigdog.com/ I'm doing this in a couple of months with my buddy. Our aim is to avoid coming last

 

Haha yes it is and they are down to 150 which is a bargain for what you get. Christened it with some mud today its so good to ride a frame thats the right size for you. Went from a 20" to a 16" big difference and much more rideable now too infact i rode further than i have before it was that much less tiring.

Turns out i need some decent gloves though had to keep resting my hands as there was no padding on the nerves in my little fingers so i need something with some padding. Also binning the big ring i dont use it and I've a feeling itll be a horrible spinning leg shedding device again soon (already done it once)

Also Bennie, I was doing the offroad one of those later this year but ive pulled out due to a work issue which sucks

 

Was cleaning out one of my closets the other day and decided to start a bit of a project with some of the scrap in there. What you see below is the result with a full rundown further below.









(sorry for rather terrible pictures - been feeling... let's just say bad lately as sleep isn't something I've had in a month, nor a day off, and don't get me started on stress)

Anyway, some lovely specifications for you lot on my parts bin bike:
Frameset is a Balfa Minuteman, hand made in Canada with US-made steel, a Bombshell Wendy fork up front rotating on an FSA Pig Pro headset, Race Face Turbine cranks sporting a MRP G2 guide and FUNN Souljam pedals, XTR cassette and KMC chain running on a Tiagra derailleur with Deore shifter, Easton EA50 bars resting in a FUNN Serial Killa stem and some Axiom lock-on grips stuck on for good measure, a rather paltry Juicy Five brake out back, Kenda Flame tyres at both ends with a Mavic 317 rolling on a M525 hub out back and a Supra N spinning atop an unbranded hub up front, and finally to keep my butt from meeting the tyre I've stuck a Titec Ithys saddle on a cheapo Kalloy post, bolted in place with a Pazzaz triple-bolt collar.

I should mention that this bike will never get ridden owing to the fact that I'm not really into the type of riding it is geared towards, but the frame and fork are so rare and unique at this point that I just cannot give them up - I've turned down more than a half dozen offers from people who want to buy just the frame alone over the past three days. So consider this as a rather lovely little talking piece I can whip out now and again.

Eventually I plan to stick it to a wall or something to get it out of the way.

 

New bar and stem combo arrived today, need to cut the bars down though as 730mm is far to wide for all things XC related.

 

Binned off the 44T spinning leg shredder of doom the other day and put on a bash ring instead. Faffed with the front mech so i cant overshift by accident, i never used it and all it did was catch on things when i rode anyway.

Changed a couple of other bits over, the hope rear rotors gone it was a pain to setup because of the rivet type things catching the brake mount so a friend gave me his old Avid one. added some washers and bingo its on.
Me being stupid i forgot to fit the crank pre tensioner bolt which basically helps stop the non drive crank arm falling off and stops you from over tightening the crank. had the amusing ride where the arm kept coming loose so ive fixed it by buying a new one, im guessing i lost the old one on the trails somewhere after not tightening it correctly (fail for me). This ones on and torqued correctly.
Changed a couple of bolts to go faster red ones, soaked the seatpost in degreaser its now black and has markings i never knew existed!

The bikes a million times better than my old one its over a kilo lighter and as its a smaller frame i can chuck it about more and its not as tiring to ride I can now winch myself up hills i would never have dared too.

Still crying out for new pedals though :s

 

Just bought myself a Shimano 105 front derailleur because my old derailleur had problems extending all the way over the largest chainring on my FSA Vero crank. Next purchase is probably a Shimano 105 rear derailleur to replace the Shimano Sora - Just because I like things to match.

Also, I need some new gear shifters. The current ones are mounted on the frame, but I would like to replace them with some handlebar mounted brake+shift lever combo.

 

VDO Cycle computer with Cadence sensor

Birthday pressie from my lil sis

Fitted, calibrated to my tyre size but sadly not ridden yet due to foul weather.

Should I chase an average speed or a high cadence ........ hmmmm decisions decisions

 

So, this is a thing that is happening at the moment:





City is under a state of emergency, 75,000 displaced, three dead, power is out to a very large area, water is under mandatory conservation restrictions (and now tastes like dirt/silt), and untold millions in damage. Yeah, eight years ago we had a flood that experts were calling a "once in a century" event, but this one beats it hands down and could still get higher. So, interesting times all around.

Still, got some riding in because my work place has been flooded, so not all bad.

Gallery of my pictures.

A good news report on the event.

 

Every cloud an all that malv, cracking photos as always though. over here we get floods more often, to help with the silty taste strain the water through a tea strainer and boil it. Its a pain but helps a fair bit .

Teach, depends what your trying to do, ive gone cadence first then start building speed which will obviously up my average speed.

 

Just so long as you're out of it, imagine drying out all those frames...

 

Cardiovascular fitness first and foremost followed by some building up of my anaerobic capacity for slugging up hills and taking the pain.

Will experiment and see what feels good at first - am somewhat stymied on both counts by my beta-blocker meds I have to take post heart surgery as they "rev limit" me severely to approx 80% of what someone my age and of comparable physical fitness would be capable of.

My max sustainable HR (measured many times using a polar FT40) is around 150bpm - whereas 220 - age (36) gives me 184 bpm theoretical max. I have zero capacity beyond that - and believe me I've tried and feel like I'm going to go into an irregular heart rhythm - which for me would be very bad indeed.

I clock around 70 miles a week - 50 in the gym (somewhere between 12 and 13 miles in 35 mins x4 sessions) on a static bike and 20 (10 mile loop in around 40 mins x 2) on the road at the weekend. Looking to increase road mileage at the weekend but no time to increase gym mileage during the week.

Mapmyride reports a max average speed of 24kph - might aim for 24.5 in the first instance and see how I feel playing around with gear selection to maintain it - hopefully the VDO computer agrees with the GPS estimate when I finally get to ride it - it's been disgusting here this weekend with rain and serious wind.

 

I just resorted to a combination of coffee, tea and the reserves I had on hand just in case the water got cut off (or contaminated). Wasn't too bad though, as growing up I got to sample quite a bit of rather interesting well water, which is arguably much worse.

My apartment is sat atop a good sized hill overlooking the river, so even though I'm rather close, I'm more than safe. But yes, the bikes would have been the first thing to be saved (and the computers, obviously).


Anyway, project time:

I've been after a good looking and functioning set of lights I can permanently mount onto my Linus for some time, and though the headlight I'd worked on isn't terrible, it wasn't effectual when the basket was loaded (which is often). The rear end also proved to be quite a pain due to how few lights are on the market that are able to mount onto a standard reflector mount (which my rack is equipped with). So I've kept my eye out for the past year whenever I look through a catalogue, through a store, or online, but it was only recently that I came across something which I thought would fit all my criteria.

Originally meant to be a front and rear combination light set powered entirely by a tyre-driven generator, this little beauty was found in a bin at the shop I volunteer with. Needless to say I snapped it up and began planning it's implementation.

The original idea for this light set was to use it as is: front and rear, powered by a generator. What was the catch? Tension spring in the generator was broken, meaning that it wouldn't maintain contact with the tyre. So what I came up with was having this generator operate via a cable which was then driven through a single "suicide" shifter mounted on the stem of the bike. When you wanted the lighting to come on you just pulled on this lever and the generator would make contact.

This was flawed for a number of reasons, primary of which was the longevity of the bulbs in the lights and the lack of availability. So though I don't use this bike too much in the dark, I don't imagine the bulbs lasting very long which would make the overly elaborate mounting system somewhat pointless and I'd just have to do it all again but with a different system. Then the thought was hatched:

"Sod it, let's rip these things apart and stick some new stuff in them".

Out came the soldering iron and glue gun along side a search for some donor electronics. For the back I utilized the guts of a Serfas Chainstay light. Operated through the use of two button batteries but consisting of a grand total of six traditional red LED's and one ultra-bright surface-mounted red LED, this little sucker packs one heck of a visual punch.



First and foremost I tore off most of the casing from the Serfas light, leaving nothing more than the battery compartment. The spring-plate style switch was then torn off, some wire soldered on, and a new surface-mounted momentary switch attached. All this junk was then warped and twisted into place with the light itself getting mounted directly into the front and the switch placed into the back, which is then operated by depressing a bolt which goes through the housing using the original hole for the power cable.



This odd mounting achieves a couple of effects: battery changes, and marginal waterproofing (nothing is directly exposed).

For the moment I only have the parts to do the rear light, but do expect some shots of the front along with some final mounting shots once everything is buttoned up and done.