Trek's 1 World 2 Wheels

Yeah, I know it's mostly Trek's marketing talking, but hey, every little bit helps.

Woodpecker Mk.3

Here's the third incarnation of Woody, my 2000 model year Surly Cross Check. The earlier version can be found at this previous post. I decided that I have enough hills on my commute to make multiple gearing worthwhile, so this version has a frankenburger 5-speed cluster shifted with a Deore DX "proto-type" medium cage derailleur and an upside-down Suntour friction thumbshifter. Plenty jury-rigged, but it works just swimmingly.


I also moved the Inoled from the stem mount to a better and somewhat more permanent position on a reflector bracket at the fork crown.

I still think the Cross Check is near the pinnacle of do-it-all mutt bicycle design. Handling, feel, acceleration, durability versatility—it's got a good balance of all of it. My only complaint is the lack of upper rear rack mounts and dedicated rear cantilever stop. Oh, and the poor design of the Constrictor seatpost binder—the stock bolt is too short to engage all of the threads and strips easily. I seldom break stuff and I'm on my second one.

Look for a write-up soon about the Woodpeckers slow cousin, our Electra Amsterdam.

Twelve Days, 250 Miles

I've been riding a lot more in the last two weeks than the whole rest of the year. I've been commuting nearly every day, rode to Paoli on the 4th (38 miles) and did an 80-miler out to Arena this past Saturday. My friend Chuck seems to think I was punishing him for dragging me along to the 2006 Horribly Hilly Hundred, but the honest truth is that I had a bug up my nose to rephotograph something I had shot back in August of 1993. Never did find it.

What we did find was plenty of water, most of it standing in farm fields. Of course, there was one place where it was over the road, with a measly Road Closed sign maybe 100 yards prior:


So Chuck says "should we try it?" to which I replied "sure, let me know how it goes." Cost us a mile or two of backtracking, but we got around it. So that was fun.

Lately though, everywhere I go, there seems to be a bunch of bikes there. Used to be it was just me and a few other bike geeks out there, but now it seems like every Tom, Dick, Harry, Sally, Lois, Frederica and their cousin's uncles sister's boyfriend's cat is out there with us. What the hell?


See? Even on the nicest days, there used to be like about three of us on this little island in the middle of this intersection, and now these fools are trying to stuff like a dozen or more onto it. This is without mentioning the bike paths, which are also crowded:


Must be some kind of new trend. I'll be glad when it's over and I can have the bike paths to myself again.

Surly Big Dummy Availability

Looking at my stats, seems like there have been a quite a few folks trying to figure out when the next batch of Big Dummies will be available. I don't have an inside line, but I can direct you seekers to the Surly blog post that sounds like August, and an earlier post that said 

More Big Dummy framesets are slated to be ready around August/September, with another batch coming just a few months later in November/December.

So, there's that.

In other news, the Rack Lady has finished the custom front rack for my Dummy. Can't wait to see it.

More Than You Wanted to Know

I know that this tagging business went through the Land of Bikegeek a while back, but nobody got me. Recently though, my friend Heather from way back tagged me with the Meme of Fives, so here we go:

First, the background.

1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.


2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.


3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names.


4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.


5. Create an arbitrary rule to keep with the whole fives theme.

What were you doing five years ago?
I barely remember what I had for breakfast today, but I do remember working the same job I have now, riding my bike a lot (but not as much as now—only 1828 miles for all of 2003), and bringing up baby (who was in preschool at the time.)

On the home front, we gutted and rebuilt our one and only bathroom—new floor with those cute little hex tiles, concrete countertop, new drywall and paint, hand-set tile tub surround, new fixtures and new cabinets. Great once it was finished, but I'd rather not ever have to bathe in our basement washtub ever again.

I was also having quite a bout with anxiety and depression, which has greatly improved in the intervening five years. Hope that's not oversharing.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

1. Live through another bicycle commute to and from work.


2. Figure out how to merge GIS shapefiles of 17 counties and about 220 Zip codes onto a map of Wisconsin and make it look presentable in Adobe Illustrator.


3. Check on the garden after work.


4. After checking the garden, take the Big Dummy over to the Rack Lady's shop and talk to her about making a custom front rack for it.


5. Watch a Netflixed DVD of I Am Legend (though movies are not a typical Wednesday night thing.)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

1. Raspberries right off the cane;


2. Peas or beans right there in the garden;


3. Peanuts, preferably with dried apricots;


4. Sugar River Dairy vanilla yogurt with wheat bran, Grape Nuts and honey;


5. Graham crackers.

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?

1. I have no point of reference for answering this question, which is okay, because


2. it ain't gonna happen,


3. So why speculate?


4. And even if it did happen, I'm afraid it would likely push me in directions I find unappealing,


5. Just like it would have done with Dietrich Bader's character in the movie Office Space, who reckoned that if he had a million bucks, he'd do two chicks at the same time.

What are five of your bad habits?

1. Procrastination (it took me weeks to sit down and do this list.)


2. Pontification.


3. Hoarding stuff, especially anything to do with bikes.


4. Taking on more projects than I can finish, which goes hand in hand with sometimes having screwed-up priorities and accumulating too much crap (see #3 above).


5. Nose-picking (and, apparently, oversharing.)

What are five places where you have lived?

1. In a house on the edge of a 40-acre wood;


2. In a high-rise college dormitory (UW Milwaukee);


3. Numerous Madison apartments;


4. Behind Mother Fool's, and


5. Currently in a 750-square foot bungalow on the near east side of Madison.

What are five jobs you’ve had?

1. Sign painter


2. Retail clerk (hardware store, Toys R Us, camera store and bike shop)


3. Seed corn sorter, dryer bin loader, detassling foreman.


4. Carpenter's apprentice


5. Graphics dude

Five people I tag (though I happily excuse anyone already tagged from having to repeat):

Tarik
Doug
Tex
Darwin
Emily

I'd also tag Chuck and Andy, but neither of them have blogs...

Hot Bike-on-Bike Action

As I've mentioned before, it turns out that you can tow other bikes pretty easily with an Xtracycle. Here are a few more for the record:


I lent the Xtrakoram to theBicycle Federation of Wisconsin so they could show it off at an event (the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair, to be exact.) I had ridden the Cross Check to the bus station, and here the Xtrakoram tows it home.


I've been having some trouble with the Amsterdam, so here's the Big Dummy towing it to the shop for some warranty work.


and the Coop duh Gracie: The Big Dummy tows the Xtrakoram. How do you think it got to the bus station?

Dangit, Missed it Again

I had completely forgotten that yesterday was Drive Your Bike to Work Day:

HOW DO I PARTICIPATE?

That's easy! Just hoist your bike onto the roof of your car, and drive it to work! Do it in honor of Bike Rack Awareness Week!

So the poor car sat waiting patiently all day in the driveway with its bike rack perched on top, and yours truly just spaced it out and rode. Inconsiderate lunk—I could kick myself!

(H/T to Maynard)

Mama Bakfiets Race

Okay, now that I've stared blogging and I can't stop. Check this out:



Top that, Prius jockeys.

(Complete story over on Amsterdamize, with hat tip to transportfiets.net.)

Pretty Much It

Judging by the amount of traffic on the bike path recently, I think this says it all.

Surly Big Dummy Review, Part 2

The Build

Well, there it is. I have to say that it went together really well. I did have to clean some powdercoat out some of the threads, but like I had mentioned in Part 1, I have the taps for those, so no big deal. Everything else fit without modification—the dropouts, the fork, the disk tabs, the seatpost—all of it. Surly's builder has excellent quality control as far as I can tell.

The disk brakes were a bit of a challenge. They're Hayes HFX Mag Hydraulics, which are great except stock lines come only in 900 and 1600 mm lengths. For the Big Dummy, the rear needed to be 2200 mm. After a couple of failed go-rounds with a couple of local shops, I e-mailed Hayes tech support. Four e-mail volleys with a very helpful young man and $40 on the ol' Visa card later, UPS dropped off a box containing a one-off line from the factory, complete with permanent crimp at the caliper end. Problem solved.


Then I had to juice them up. Quite unlike a car, but honestly, much more fun


I also added this little hinkeypunk to keep the contents of the Freeloaders (the Xtracycle's side bags) from messing up the rear caliper. This is more of a problem with mechanical disks, but I had the part, so why not? Anyways, the hydraulics are great. Much better feel than a long cable to the rear brake in on my other Xtracycles. Front and rear are very similar in feel and power.

The Ride

Yes, it is decidedly much more like a regular bike than my Xtracycle conversions were. Having a wheelbase about 15 inches longer than the average bike, it's still not nimble, but the folks at Surly really did get the finer points of the geometry right. The steering has a light, normal feel and the frame feels stiffer and more solid than a conversion. Things do get a little strange in low-speed, tight-radius turns, but hey, we're talking about an eight-foot long bicycle.

Pedaling out of the saddle also has a different feel than a regular bicycle, but it's fine. Quite stable, and better again than an Xtracycle conversion.

Oh, and for those of you concerned about weight, this thing is a moose. I think the frame weighs almost as much as my road bike. With the freeride wheels, Big Apple tires and big dorky handlebars, not to mention the Xtracycle bits, it's probably tipping the scales at close to 45 pounds. But the point, of course, is not to race this thing but to wring more utility out of it than a normal bicycle. I love it.

Part three will be a bit about hauling and a bit about buzz. See Commute By Bike and Dirt Rag for more ride reports, and Vik's Big Dummy Blog if you want to know just plain everything about Big Dummies.