Smoothies and knobbies

Summer is hitting in a big way.  The kind of days where nothing beats an ice cold fruit smoothie after a solid bike ride.  In the last month I have pretty much finished up the XtraCycloMountainTouringCruiser it's now got a new 26" wheelset, an 8speed drivetrain with 11-34t cogs in back, a disc brake up front, fenders and the cargo bags attached and tested.  First mission was a 40 lb bag of dog food.  It's since been grocery shopping several times and has even transported a casserole dish of 7 layer bean dip safely to it's destination across town.  I love this bike, so much fun.  If we had rail service that was actually practical for getting between here and Maine, I could legitimately see getting rid of one of our cars.  This thing rocks the socks off a regular trip to the grocery store for a week's worth of groceries.


New to the stable is a tandem!  Liana and I have been married for a year and for our anniversary she suggested a tandem so she could keep up with me on rides.  I love this woman.  We found a basic townie style tandem with a swoopy cruiser style frame on Craigslist for a pretty good bargain of $140!  It's a Kent "Dual Drive" which sells new for around $300 at places like Amazon.com and other big box online stores, ours is only a year old, but looks like new thanks to a couple hours I spent cleaning it and tuning it up (and peeling off the ridiculous number of stickers it came with).  It only needed a longer seatpost for Liana since most tandems assume that the rear rider is shorter and Liana and I ride the same height seat.  I was pleasantly surprised to find Shimano components on the bike, it's decked out with Tourney derailleurs and Revo shifters, basic, but reliable.  21spd drivetrain, big cushy seats and a not terrible paint scheme.  The bike would be well worth the $300 price for new.  Adjusting to tandeming does not seem that difficult, we've been cruising around the neighborhood on it and are looking forward to actually putting some miles down with it soon.

Parts just arrived for my next project: Reincarnating my Bridgestone BB-1 as a moustache-barred, single speed 26" monstercross bike.  It's currently been stripped of parts again for various other builds.  Nashbar was having a sale on a bunch of random parts, how could I turn down $8 for a moustache bar?  I believe I have all the other parts kicking around for the build though I may actually upgrade its canti brakes and slap a fresh chainring on it.  I can picture it in my head and I think it's gonna look sweet.  Red frame, silver components, brown saddle, and cork tape...

Wind in the spokes

It has been a windy month. Plenty warm enough for riding, but very generally windy. I've almost been blown of the road a few times though. It's now warm enough to ride to work every day but with that weird early spring temperature differential between 7:00am and a couple hours later. Most mornings I need tights, jacket, hat, gloves, and in the after noon I need none of that. So I've been looking like a camel on my way home lately with my jersey pockets stuffed full.

Today I basically have to go for a very long ride; The century date we've (Jim and I) been talking about is next weekend, but I'm not sure if that's going to work out for a number of reasons.

Now that the weather is a little more conducive to pictures, I got out the whole stable (well, except for the new guy) for some pictures. Here they are:

Nashbar Road bike, built 2006 (aka: Woof):


Dad's [now mine] Schwinn Suburban (1972):


I've been very excited to add Dad's bike to my collection. My earliest memories involve being carried in a backpack while atop this bike. We used to go for a bike ride almost every day when I was tiny. We would ride out to Dairy Queen for ice cream, and up to the powerlines to pick blueberries. I would invariably fall asleep during the rides with the wind in my face. This was a bike that had 10 whole gears. When I was old enough for my own BMX bike, I was amazed that you could have all those levers and gears and you could go so fast. The mechs on this bike are all very old, and weigh a ton. I have begun the process of tearing it down to make a single speed conversion out of it. I will likely be buying some new wheels for this bike soon. Probably track wheels so I can ride it fixed as well. I bought new rubber for it right away, only to find that yes, these are the old Schwinn proprietary rims that don't hold a conventional tire bead. 90 psi- BANG! Off like a shotgun.

Raleigh R-300 (1997) Touring bike:


Hawthorne Fixed-Gear (aka: Dump Bike):


Trek Cruiser Classic (frame 2006) Fixed-Gear (aka: Pirate Bike):


Bridgestone BB-1 mountain bike (1992):


Not pictured are a couple crappy old frames that are hanging in the corner, a Schwinn Varsity, and a gas pipe Shogun. Also just yesterday I picked up a dept store ten speed with a decent looking lugged steel frame, fenders, and 26" wheels. That may be destined for a bizarre FG conversion.