In the Hot Rod World I Believe They Call Them "Trailer Queens"

Yesterday some dood was going off in a Facebook group for 24",26"and 29" BMX bikes, about how he was Joe Cool because he "always did all the work on his bikes himself and never took it to a shop". Not only was he was making a ridiculous point he was doing it in a very rude way, using some smugtone and 'tude.

I had to resist my urge to piss all over him by reminding him that he is part of a group that builds insanely awesome bikes which then just SIT THERE never being ridden, like some kind of sad museum pieces. Seriously these guys get a blister on their peen if they so much as get a spec of dirt on their authentic skinwall Comp III tires.

They also make stupid parts choices sometimes, using parts that would immediately get destroyed if the bikes were actually ridden (I'm looking at you Suntour XC pedals ).

I can appreciate that they love bikes and love building them, but when I was a kid I hated the rich kids that always had the best bikes and parts and couldn't even do a wheelie or a bunnyhop. Fucking poseurs. I hated it when they would come into the bike shop I worked at because I knew I was selling them parts that would be served much better by people I knew personally who couldn't afford them.

Then this morning I had another laugh at that particular group as one of the members was showing off his builds, which were all different equipped/colorwayed version of the same bike! How fucking boring. He had 4 of the same bike, and no doubt is working on one or two more. 

I dunno, maybe my way of thinking is wrong. Maybe some of the guys doing these builds ARE the ones who couldn't afford the best bikes and parts when they were growing up, so now that they can, they are indulging themselves. Good for them I guess, and I will say that there are some great builds from time to time, like this Bassett.



 But there are definitely people in that group who are really into doing a build JUST so they can sell it and do another one. I just don't get that. Oh I'm sorry, is my retro grouch showing? I guess after working at a shop I really just can't get into the concept or working on bikes for fun. RIDING bikes for fun, now there's a concept!

The Blues

Rad new anodized bolt for the star nut inside the steerer tube. My buddy Jay hooked me up. Thanks Jay! I love little details like this that heads see but normals don't. 

Slowing Down to Speed Up

Lately it has been HOT here in Georgia, so I've been adapting my riding style to deal with the heat. By that I mean I have been slowing it waaaay down. Not that I was very fast to begin with, but the slow down isn't just the pace of the rides, it is my approach to summer riding in general.

First off, I am not doing as many rides. Throughout winter and spring, my ride strategy was: RIDE EVERY TIME WEATHER ALLOWS. Here in Georgia it does get cold wet and windy, but those days are usually interspersed with mild sunny somewhat unseasonably warm days. So you have to be ready for all of it, and unless it is pissing down cold rain, you better take advantage of acceptable riding conditions when you can. This year the winter was fairly mild. Lots of warm days, not too much rain, and the wind was even cooperating more than in years past. Still, since you can never tell when the streak of good weather may end, the sense of urgency to ride from January through the end of April is high. So I rode a lot over winter/spring. A lot for me anyway. Now that I am using the Stavistix plug in to enhance my Strava stats, I am able to see where I am mileage-wise compared to years past, to the day. Definitely did some work this winter. UPSIDE: I can tell that the work paid off.

Secondly I'm not working towards any immediate goals right now. Through winter there were a few organized rides happening in spring that were always percolating in the back of my mind to work towards. They were the Atlanta Cycling Festival Bicycle Camping ride, Athens Twilight Criterium - The Gambler ride, and the Jackson County Brevet. But right now there are no organized rides on my agenda. This could change quickly though, as this is the forst year that I have been keeping a spreadsheet of upcoming charity rides so that I can actually make plans. So I'll be making a late summer - fall plan soon. No, Six-Gap (well, 3 Gap for me) will not be part of my plans, but it is on my radar as a long term goal.

Lastly, I'm kind of bored with riding all the same places, so I needed to change things up a bit. To do this, I finally got a new KONA BLAST mountain bike, and I've been hitting the woods.



Getting back on a mountain bike has been awesome. Lots of shade in the woods so riding is cooler, and being in the woods makes me feel great. No buyers remorse at all on the bike, it is the nicest I've ever had. In addition to hitting the trails I've also developed a little liking for pump tracks.



But lets get back to talking about going slow.

Right now, when I am riding, I have been deliberately turning easier gears. I've been thinking about  and trying different techniques. I've been working on different positions on the bike. I've been standing up to pedal more than in the past. I've been choosing easy, fun routes.

Right now on my road bike rides, I'm taking it easy on the flats and downhills, but putting stronger efforts into the climbs. I'm hoping that it will have an effect of making my overall rides as fast or faster than I've been doing, but sort of tricking myself into feeling like I haven't used as much energy, since I will go for long periods in chillmode between climbs. usually I am giving a decent effort on the flats and downhills and then automatically go into "high torque high cadence" mode on the climbs. Now I am telling myself that I am strong enough that I should be turning a higher gear on the climbs, getting my butt out of the saddle and attacking them. Plenty of time to rest on the other side. We'll see how this works out.

I'm also breaking out ye Olde GT Talera for some rides. Always a pleasure cruise on that contraption. I'll wear my wal-mart imitation crocs when I go Talera. That will insure that no aggressive riding will happen. It is my "Forget Strava and just have a good time" bike. Of course I still log the ride though.

I'm cool with slowing down my riding in most aspects right now. I had a great winter and spring so I'm due for getting back to ENJOYING the ride again, rather than having each session come off like work. I'll get back to workmode soon enough.

Atlanta Cyling Festival 2016 - Pump Track / Opening Party Action

Atlanta Cycling Festival - The Big Opening Party happened this past weekend. Fun times! The event was at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, on the top two floors of the parking deck. BONUS: You didn't have to ride your bike up all 6 decks, you were able to come up with your bike in the elevators. That was a nice touch because it was HOT out.

Once on the top floors, you could scoot around and check out lots of biking related vendors, and also grab some beers which were included with your admission. What I was really excited about though, was the REI  portable pumptrack.

It was a Shoretrax wooden slat board system which is able to be set up in a different configuration each time. I had never ridden a Shoretrax system before. Lots of fun was had. My buddy Mershon rode it on his new 700c, while I used my 27.5 Kona Blast. I pumped up the tires and locked out the fork for maximum pumpability, which worked out pretty well.

The pump track was very popular and lots of people tried it on all kinds of bikes. A few people didn't make it through the whole way the first time, and some even had some small bails, but I am pretty sure everyone who gave it a try eventually cleared the whole course.

Overall I am glad I went to check it out, and I'm glad I got to support ACF. I heard that they are going to have the pump track at the closing party so I may have to hit it again.


Mershon gettin' it on the MBike


Regular Cyclist using the berm as a launch device.


Manual off the final berm yes yes

BRAG 2016 Swainsboro Overnight

I've been following the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) on Faccebook. I'd really love to do a multi-day ride like BRAG at some point, and watching the posts on FB is a great way to get a feel for what to expect.

The photo above (by BRAG participant Stacy Johnson) is from a gymnasium in Swainsboro GA, where riders stayed overnight. Looks pretty comfortable compared to not having to deal with the unpredictable weather when outdoor camping. However, the photo has me wondering...did it get weird after hours when the lights went down?

By weird, I actually mean the "night noises". These people are all sleeping in very close quarters without even a tent between them, which means that you can hear EVERYTHING. So I'm thinking that once people started to fall asleep, it became a Symphony of Snores. At some point someone is also going to fart...loudly.

I wouldn't have thought about this at all if it weren't for attending the Atlanta Cycling Festival Bicycle Camping event earlier this year. The event was amazing. Forty five of us rode 35 miles out on the Silver Comet Trail, then camped and did the return trip the following morniing. Most people fell asleep and slept soundly, but not me. I was awake for most of the night for various reasons, so I was exposed to my first Symphony of Snores. I've never heard anything like it. Every single tent had one or more people sawing wood like it was some kind of contest to see who could be the loudest. In the brief moments that I fell asleep, I am sure I contributed. Part of why I was awake was that I had lost my mobile phone, so I was panicking, walking around outside the tent thinking about how rad it would be if I could record the snoring. Unfortunately I did not find my phone until morning when people were waking up (it was under my pillow...doh!), so I did not get to record any audio. But I'll be prepared next year.

Anyway, BRAG riders have the option of not staying in the group overnight areas, by finding a hotel or other accommodations, but from what I understand, if you stay offsite you are on your own getting your back to the daily ride start location.

The rest of the photos I've seen so far look like everyone on the ride is having a great time!

Beach Cruiser Klunker / Rat Rod Project pt.2 - Seat & Chain

It was pretty funny to find that I did not have a seat rail clamp amongst all the parts I have laying around. Well, not really I guess....during the BMX days they were always around because they came with the seat, so if you didn't toss your old seat you would always have a clamp. I think we had an entire drawer of them at the bike shop that we removed as people would replace their seats. I DID have a seat though. Here is some before and after action.

I hit up Pork Chop BMX for a sweet inexpensive gold chain. I was pretty concerned that it was not going to fit the 53/20 gearing, since it was only 112 links, but it actually fit! I had to remove 2 links. Also I was pretty stoked that I was able to set it up without a master link. Who needs master links? Here is a before (with chain guard), before (without chain guard), and after + after close up.

The gold chain is the first component I think is giving it sort of some visual rat rod realism, as it is obvs a brand new component on an otherwise heavily patina-ed drivetrain. Now that the chain is installed the bike is actually rideable, so I took it for a quick spin up and down the driveway. My coaster brake repair if working GREAT and will probably get even more dialed in over time. Believe it or not, the cranks are running fine, so I have not yet overhauled the inners. One other cool thing that is happening is the bike is starting to solid up...meaning that when you lift it up a few inches and drop it, there are a LOT less rattles.

More to come!

Beach Cruiser Klunker / Rat Rod Project pt.1 - Coaster Brake Chronicles & Truing Front

Little by little I've started to attack the mechanical issues on Monty the Klunker/RatRod/BoardBike. Something I was really suprised about was how loose the front spokes were. The rear spokes aren't that loose at all, and the front wheel of a beach cruiser isn't exactly a high stress area, so who knows how they got that way. Maybe there was a basket attached to the front at some point which supported some heavy lifting, I dunno. Anyway I got it sorted out proper. Started out just tightening the spokes while it was still in the fork, but eventually stopped being lazy and broke out Ye Olde Truing Stand. What you don't see here is that I took a pretty good amount of time to wire brush the rust out of the inside of the rim, which surely would have caused some flats.

Days went by and the weekend came. The next and probably most major mechanical issue to be attacked was the rear hub / Bendix coaster brake. The hub was not engaging in either direction, it would not drive or brake, and turning the sprocket in either direction was crazy hard. Thankfully it was not completely seized up though. During my time at Golden Ring Bicycle Shop back in Baltimore, I repaired a zillion Bendix and Shimano coaster brakes, and usually it was a case of the parts being fine, but the lubrication inside of the hub being completely gummed up and making all the parts actually stick together. My boss back in Baltimore told me that the reason this happens is that grease actually contains a solvent as one of the ingredients and eventually the solvent will eat away at the actual portions of the grease that make it slippery, leaving a sticky mess that can actually harden considerably if left to do so. I was pretty sure this was the issue with this hub. I hadn't overhauled a coaster in 20 years but it was time to dig in.

Not sure what the exact model of Bendix coaster brake this is. The bike is from 1981. If you need to ID a Bendix coaster brake hop over to this site and take a look.

The axle threads are in great condition so the nuts came off fine which is a bonus. I can't tell you how many of these things I've had to work on where the axles have been victims of many accidents or the bike just being thrown down when some kid was done riding it, so the threads are jacked up out near the edges. That always makes it a pain in the butt. I got lucky I guess. Twenty teeth on the rear sprocket.

Snap ring and dust cover of the drive side came off easily. The next part is where I started to run into some difficulty. I wanted to remove everything by loosening the cone and lock nut on the drive side. For some reason I remember that this was the easier way to do this repair when it came to the reassembly phase. Unfortunately I am not equipped with cone wrenches that will fit this wheel, so I kind of had to work with what it would allow me to do. Of course this meant that it wanted to be disassembled by the brake arm side. Okay, I can deal with that I guess. The next problem was that I do not have one of these:

For those of you that don't know, this tool is called an Axle Vice. The concept here is that the aluminum inner pads are softer than the steel axle, so you can put this tool in a bench vice, then insert the axle in it, then clamp down as hard as you want because the aluminum will bite into the threads but will not crush them. Awesome right?! However, since I am a Low Budget Soul Rider, I don't have every freakin tool under the sun, so I had to improvise. Hmmmm...let's see...maybe I have some aluminum around here somewhere...let me me think. Oh right, I have a BUNCH of aluminum...

Aluminum BEER CANS. That's right, I folded over a can a few times and used just enough pressure on the vice to get it to work. The whole thing had me laughing at my geniusness. NOTE: I do NOT recommend trying this yourself. Spring for the axle vice it will be worth it. If I ever have to do another axle related repair I'm gonna. This approach was actually pretty risky and I could have really cost myself some time and money if I'd have screwed up the threads.

Now we are starting to get into the meat of things. That white stuff on the inside of this part is basically a hard crumbly powder that used to be nice slippery white lithium grease. The brown stuff was so sticky I am not actually using any pinch pressure to hold it up, it is just sticking to my thumb and finger.

The inside of the hib was ridiculous. Everything just sticking together like crazy. The pic above is the brake arm side. The pic below is the drive side. It took a while to get the drive side disassembled because there is a component inside that has some very deep threads which slides a mechanism horizontally inside the hub to activate the brake or drive the wheel. That component had become stuck in a position where the threads wouldn't egage. I finally had to break out some car brake cleaner to get the pieces loos enough to move at all, and then had to work at it about another 10 mins to get them apart. Very relieved once that part was over with, because after that I was sure no parts were actually broken.

Here are pretty much all the parts except the axle and brake are side bearing (which was still in the vice) before cleaning.

The brake shoes. yeah that "grease" is over 20 years old, it is disgusting.

The component above with the super deep threads is actually three pieces and threads into the component in the top right. These were the pieces that were stuck together so bad that I had trouble getting them out.

The hub after using car brake cleaner to free the stuck parts, but before deep cleaning it. The brown gunk on the inner ridge got totally removed.

A close up view of my LBSR Beer Can Axle Vice® after use. Now to the Cleaning and reassembly phase.

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My brother recently replaced practically the entire top end of his truck motor, and as part of that project he added a real deal parts washer to the workshop. This thing is super rad. It pumps a continuous flow of solvent into the basin and you can get the parts super scrubbed without using a bunch of aerosol crap. In this case we are using kerosene. Had to be kind of careful, super flammable. I did wheel it outside though to lessen the fumes.

Here are the parts after cleaning. Note that I was not going for a full on restoration type cleaning here. That would be outside the scope of this project. Keeping the patina of the old parts is important to the rat-roddiness of this build, but I wanted all of the working surfaces to be dialed in, and it worked out well. 

Remember I was saying that I wanted to take it apart from the drive side because putting it back together would be much easier? Yeah well, I was right. When you do it from the drive side, you can sort of pre-assemble the inner and the brake shoes using new grease to sort of stick everything together, then slide the entire mechanism inside the hub in one shot. Unfortunately it is not that easy if you have disassembled it the way I had to. i would love to have gotten some photos of the reassembly process, but by this time I had had a bunch of beers, and once I started putting new grease on everything, I didn't want to get it all over the camera, because my fingers where covered in it. Also, getting it back together from the non-drive side was very tricky and once I got the brake shoes in place I had to keep the momentum going because if just one of them would move out of place I'd have to take the whole thing back apart and start the reassembly over. So I kept on pushing.

Sorry the final phot is a little blurry. By this time I was a little blurry too. But even in the blurry pic you can tel that it is much cleaner than when I started. I still had to put on the brake arm and lock nut at this point.

When it was all done I picked it up and checked it to see if the drive would engage, and if the brakes worked. Totally solid!

So, I can still rock a coaster brake overhaul after all these years. Yeah!