It was the toe-in.  And coming from the Big Honkin Hammer School of Technology, I fiddled around with the Kool Stop Salmons for about ten minutes before my patience wore thin.

The solution involved removing each pad assembly from the canti arm, clamping the threaded post in my trusty Harbor Freight big arse table vise, and leaning down on the pad to insure that the front would make contact with the rim first.  It took two tries, but now there is just the pleasing swish of the pads doing their job against the rims to bring the Trucker to a perfectly modulated and purposeful stop.

No calipers, no levels, no torque wrenches, no problem.

One of the concerns I’ve had about the LHT since the start was the wheels.  I think there was a lot of pressure on the guys at PP to keep the cost as close to a complete build as they could, and when we talked about the wheels, I didn’t flinch at the entry level Alex/Joytech combination that they were able to supply.  And the truth is, they’re not a bad wheel, just not the best combination for extended riding where reliability is paramount.

Within six months, the front wheel was replaced with the Shimano dynohub/ACE19 32 spoke setup.  The dyno is reputed to be Ultegra quality, and with the 32 spoke configuration, it was definitely a step up from the 24 spoke build.  For 3000 miles, the dynohub has performed flawlessly.

That left the 28 spoke rear, which also has performed well; although I’ve broken two driveside spokes in the last few months.  So when thinking about upgrades, that left me on the lookout for a reasonably priced touring wheel that would come close to matching the front for looks.

Recently I found a well-priced Alex Adventurer rim, 36 spokes, laced to a Shimano XT hub.  The Adventurer is heavier than the DC19, but the geometry and appearance is similar except for the sidewall – it’s thicker and has a larger and smoother braking surface.  Plus the spokes are stainless, matching the front.

But the real difference is the XT hub.  It’s super smooth and very quiet.  Even looking at the components, one can see the difference in quality.  Joytech can be hit or miss depending on the model and when it was built, but the XT hub leaves no doubt that it is going to be smooth and reliable.

Changing over the cassette was no problem, but the brakes had to be adjusted out a smidge, and now they howl like a banshee.  I’ll play around with them, but I might just have to move the Koolstops to the X bike and invest in a set of VO noise-free pads that Dave has been using.

So I now can have peace over the rear wheel as this is much better for a touring set up.  There aren’t too many more issues/upgrades to address on the bike at this point.

I’m not sure where the DC19 set will end up; maybe in the shed as spares, maybe over to the X bike, or maybe for sale.  I’m going to see what it takes to tear down the rear hub and service it just as a useful project to learn.

I’ll get some pics up soon.

Last night I went to a viewing.  I didn’t know the deceased, but we are friends with his daughter and son-in-law.  Since they were the only people we knew there, we kinda went right to them, expressed our condolences, and had a conversation about her father.  They all were taking it quite well – among Christians a funeral is actually a celebration of the deceased going to heaven.

Anyway, as we were excusing ourselves to leave, the daughter mentioned something about her brother the photographer, who was next in the receiving line.  It suddenly clicked that he was “the” Blair Seitz of numerous photo books fame, and that I had not only met him before, but he had photographed me some twenty years ago.

This was back when I was competing regularly and probably at the top of my game.  He wanted to produce stock photos of rowing and a friend of a friend called me and arranged a meeting.  I ended up signing a modelling release and getting a check for an afternoon of rowing back and forth on a small patch of Pinchot Lake.  It was a beautiful fall day.

When I mentioned this to Blair last night, he remembered it straight away, and said that one of his favorite pictures was still up on his web site.  He described it and told me how to find it.  Among close to 5000 pictures, this 20 year old shot of me is still there:

credit to BlairSeitz.com

I was so excited about all of this that I forgot to say I was sorry about his dad.  Oh well, I think he understood.

I’m pretty full of myself at the moment.  I wanted to ride last night, but I was wiped out after splitting firewood for an hour.  Finally I realized that I had to run an errand and I could take the Trucker.  As I was wheeling it out of the garage, I noticed the rear wheel binding up on the brakes – broken spoke = wheel out of true.

Murphy prevailed and I found the culprit on the drive side.  But wait!  In addition to my handy dandy crank puller, I also acquired a $12 Chain whip.  So using that and a pair of needle nose pliers to rotate the cassette cap, I was able to dis-assemble the wheel and replace the spoke.  Then I tried out the spoke wrench on my Crank Brothers tool to true things up.

Now I have no idea what the tension should be on the spokes.  I just eyeballed the wheel against the brake pads as I spun it around.  There might be a minor hop, but it is true.  One step at a time.

I’m thinking now that for any trips over a day, as long as I’m running a 28 spoke rear wheel, carrying a chain whip in the kit is probably a good idea.

All told, about 20 minutes at the shop table.

Tonight I got to test the changes to the Trucker with a nice ride at dusk.  While the rattle from the front rack is annoying when toodling up the street, I find that the wind noise pretty much cancels it out when riding at speed.

The gearing is going to take some practice and a few miles to get accustomed to, I think it is going to be an improvement.  At the top end, I find with 44X11 I spin out around 34-35mph.  Even then, I rarely find myself going that fast.  When I do, I’m usually coasting down a hill and not pedalling.  On this bike, I just can’t see myself trying to push it faster than that.

On the low end, I’m now thinking that the 22X34 isn’t that bad.  Twice I came up on some fairly steep grades where I threw down into the granny and chugged away.  Sure, grinding along at 3.9 mph isn’t exactly light speed, it still made for a nice cadence to effort ratio.  I also imagine part of this was in response to being pretty out of shape these days.

The interesting part is in the middle.  With the smaller gap between the 36t ring and now the 44t, I found myself shifting a bit more, but it’s usually just to fine tune things.  Plus, I’m very focused on keeping down the speed and finding a cruising zone.

Shifting is different.  Hitting the “big” ring isn’t that big of a deal; and throwing down into the granny is no change given the Jumpstop.  The main difference is upshifting from 22 to 36.  It seems to take a little more lever to get it up on the ring.  Again, it’s probably just a matter of getting used to it.

So this is a lot of information to process after just an hour on the bike.  If I’m true to form, I’ll be playing around with this for a while; but first impressions are favorable.

Misc. miles: 7.3

Distance: 12.9 miles  2009: 992.4

It seems as if every few months the Sloth and I decide to exchange our discarded parts bins.  We ooh and ahh and come away feeling guilty because we somehow took advantage of each other’s kindness.  This time, I’m pretty sure I got the better end of the deal, because the Trucker is now sporting a perfectly fine pair of Blackburn lowriders.  I know that he’ll see this and grouse that they were just taking up space in his basement, but the truth is that the bike side of my S240 equation is now complete.  At some point, we’re going to have to shame Scott into posting updates of his LHT, which is sporting some nice looking kit these days like a pair of anodized VO fenders.

In addition to the lowriders, I mounted a $9.99 venerable Nashbar front rack.  I know that Nashbar is a dirty word for many, but every so often they fill a need at prices you just can’t walk away from.  I needed some tools, was also looking at front loader racks, and the decision made itself.

As for first impressions, I think the NB rack serves it’s purpose.  It will hold a bag or allow for strapping down a stuff sack while not interfering with whatever panniers I have mounted on the forks.  As you can see, the Cyo is mounted up front and the wiring routed with zip ties and electrical tape.  It looks kind of vulnerable up there compared to how it was mounted back on the fender, but the choices are limited; and this appears to be how most do it.

I’m not crazy about having a rack mount on the brake bosses.  I’d much rather have braces going down to the fork mounts, but it seems the choices are limited to Nitto, which is out of my range; or an Axiom front rack, which looks like it is currently out of production.

I took a ride around the neighborhood with the grocery panniers loaded up and I really liked the feel of the ride.  With the weight down low the bike felt very stable, and I didn’t sense any adverse effect on the steering.  Obviously some more test rides are in order, but I’m cautiously optimistic that my front loaded approach is going to work.  There is a slight rattle/creaking with the Nashbar that I haven’t been able to isolate.  I’ll keep playing around, but it may come down to it being just a cheap aluminum rack.  If anything, it will work fine for now and confirm my inclination towards a Jandd Extreme front rack in the future.

Within an hour of taking these pictures, they were outdated.  One of the tools I picked up was a $7.00 Octalink-compatible crank extractor.  This is the first time I pulled a crank, so it was a little unnerving when I reached the point where the wrench got real tight and it was either “it needs a little more muscle” or “I’m going to strip something that will put my bike out of commission and cost a lot of money to fix.”  Fortunately, the little bit of muscle eased the crank off the spline and it slid out perfectly.

All of this was so I could lower the gearing up front.  Pedal Pushers had a 22 tooth granny that I changed out with the 26t, and I swapped the 48t outer ring with the 44t ring off of the X bike.  I think the 22 is a bit of overkill.  At 22/34, I was able to spin out at a whopping 4 mph.  I’d have to be hauling quite a bit up a blistering grade to grind that much, but I suppose a little insurance is not a bad thing.  Perhaps a 24t would have been a better choice.

The jumpstop makes throwing down into the granny a non-issue, but I did notice that upshifting from 22 to 36 is a little more finnicky.  It might just be a matter of practice.  The 44 looks really small, but I somehow doubt that I’ll ever spin out at 44/11.  Again, some test rides will help.

So now I need to stop writing about bikes and stop wrenching about bikes; and start actually riding bikes.  Fall baseball will be over in a week, our church construction project is almost complete, and if we ever see a weekend without rain again, I might just get out on the road.

This morning at around 7:40, coming west through the bottleneck towards Lemoyne.  I didn’t know there were any longbikes in this area.  Anyone know who he is?

Let me cover the “other tires” first:

The left rear tire on our mini-van has a slow leak.  It won’t pass inspection in December because of the tread, but I’m trying to nurse it along until just before, then I’ll spring on a pair of new tires.  But until then, I have to daily take a look at the tire and see if I have to pull out the little electric compressor we have and pump it up.  What a pain!

Next is the log splitter.  This thing basically sits in one spot most of the year, and somehow the one tire developed a leak.  I pulled it, put it in a tub of water, and discovered that it is leaking all around the rim.  Last night I partially disassembled it, scoured the rim with a wire brush and pumped it up.  This morning, out on the work bench…one very flat tire.

NOW ON TO BIKES:  One of the upgrades that I was contemplating for the Trucker is to replace the Paselas with a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Plus’.  The Paselas are a great tire, but the Schwalbes are said to be better because they have a thicker tread, and more importantly, they have a “solid” sidewall as opposed to the fabric ones that make the Paselas such a comfort to ride.  The Pasela sidewall are known to fail occassionally and are not as resistant to puncture.  I was thinking of getting the 41mm Marathons to maintain the cushy ride and give me a bit more for rougher trails.

But my Paselas have 3500 miles on them with no end in sight, so replacing them at this point seemed a bit of overkill.  Still, there was the issue of the X bike being outfitted with knobbies, and I wanted to have a lighter roadbike around just for kicks.

So along comes an opportunity to buy a used set of 35mm Marathon Plus with around 1000 miles on them, for about 1/3rd of the best price I could find elsewhere.  Too good to pass by.  They show up, and look great.  I figure the reason no one ever flats out with a Marathon Plus is because its basically got a solid thick rubber tread, creating a tall oval profile.  Sitting next to a similar 35mm tire on the same rim off of the Marin, the Schwalbe sits quite a bit higher, requiring more clearance.  That clearance is an issue, since I’m also moving the PB 45 fenders from the Marin to the X bike.  Thinking this through further, the clearance of a set of 41mm Marathons on the Trucker with fenders might be an issue as well.

But that’s neither here nor there because the X bike has a bit of room to pull the fenders out further.  But…putting those Schwalbes on the rims was almost as bad as the pair of Kendas I have on the Cannondale.  I had tire irons self-ejecting off the ceiling, I skinned a knuckle pretty bad, and I punctured not one, but two, tubes trying to pry those suckers off and on the Alex single walled rims.  I thought that maybe it was the rims, so I tried mounting one on an Alex DC19 wheel that I have…just as bad.  I don’t know what or why, but this for me is a deal breaker and now has me thinking that the Paselas on the Trucker are just fine, thank you.  Sure, the Schwalbes may never get a flat, but if they do, trying to fix them on the road is not going to go too well.  The Paselas, on the other hand, can be changed easily without any tools.  So call me spoiled.

FWIW, the X bike is now sporting a pair of nice Schwalbe Marathons along with a pair of PB fenders.  The knobbies are readily available if we want to do some trail riding, but it better be a darned nice trail if I have to go through the pain of taking off those Marathons again.  Pictures to follow.

Back in October of 2007 I posted my thoughts on “If I could have all the bikes I wanted” sort of theme.  At the time, I wanted:

• the LHT that I have now as a fast tourer, extended tourer, and general ride-around bike
• a second LHT with bigger tires and an upright stance for adventure touring and a grocery getter
• an Xtracycle for the novelty
• a lighter bike for fitness riding, akin to a Pacer

After two years, my thoughts on riding styles and preferences haven’t changed all that much, but some new bikes/frames on the market have changed what I’d probably be shopping for.

• Surly LHT set up for fast touring, with kit available for overnight/extended touring.  This is still pretty much the Trucker that I have.  The more I ride it, the more I love it.  Even without the idea of extended touring, I’d still be looking to upgrade some of the components for better durability and dependability.  I think the addition of a decent rack will also make the Trucker a good all-around errand/grocery-getter.
• An adventure tourer.  There are a number of trips/trails that I’d like to take that I think would be a bit rough for a typical road touring bike, including the LHT.  I’ve considered a second LHT with fatter tires, but 40mm with fenders is pretty much the limit.  A Karate Monkey set up for touring is a good prospect, but the short chainstays, which make it a good dirt bike, hamper the ability to carry gear.  My current choice is the X Bike (Nashbar cyclocross), but that has limited clearance for big tires and fenders as well.  It’s a fun bike to ride and was a budget project, but it has obvious limitations.  Earlier this year the Salsa Fargo caught my eye, since it appears designed for this application.  It’s basically a 29er with wide gearing and a lot of braze-ons.But recently there have been some not-so-glowing reviews about the Fargo and concern over the frame geometry.  The fear is that the steeply sloping top-tube somehow compromises the strength of the frame triangle.  I don’t know if that’s a valid concern or not, given the number of dirt bikes that look similar and aren’t falling apart, but these guys probably ride a lot more than I do.  The only thing that I would add is that the low top tube makes stepping over the frame a lot easier, which is something I’d imagine panniers and gear might force you to do sometimes.  That brings us to a new entry, the Soma Saga.  It’s steel, it’s got a higher top tube, prettier paint, and room for big tires with fenders.  Here is one built up, and is just begging to get out on the C&O Canal or the Great Allegheny Passage, although my build would probably stick with drop bars.
• Next, I’m going to drop my lusting for the Xtracycle…for now.  Maybe if I lived a little closer to civilization and could rationally use it in place of a car, but I’m now at a point where I can limit my toys.
• The third bike in the stable, and probably the least priority, would be a Surly Pacer for fitness riding and faster day rides.  Most likely I’d set it up like a brevet/rando bike with 28mm tires, and keep it light.  This is all conjecture at this point, but I think that if I had it, I’d ride it.

As an option, if I was completely without scruples and had more money than sense, I might trade the LHT and the Pacer for a Rivendell A. Homer Hilson.  It would need two sets of wheels – one for touring and one for day rides, and both with a dynohub front; as well as the assortment racks; but the bike could handle it.  I’d be down to two bikes, but I’d constantly be worried about scratching the paint on the AHH.  …and life without a Surly, oh my!

‘been busy and the weather is frightful.

My free time for the last two weeks have involved helping some friends take down and cut up a massive maple tree from one of their yards.  The original arrangement was that I would just help cut it up and he would keep the wood, since he has a woodstove.  However, when I took down the trunk, there was just so much wood lying around that he offered up “whatever I needed.”  I ended up taking the big chunks, which he was able to load onto the Pig using one of his farm tractors. 

Charlie is my farming neighbor, and kind of like everyone’s grandfather in the community.  He is either 91 or 92, I forget exactly, and he is still farming, although age is gradually catching up to him.  I had to laugh outloud one night when I was working.  He had been at it all day and was obviously tired.  He had to go inside to help his wife get dinner ready, so I thought that was that.  But Charlie, unable to sit still when there is work going on, came out three times to either check on things or offer help.

The tree, which was starting to succumb to disease, was 75 years old.  Not that we counted the rings on the table sized stump when I was done; rather because Charlie remembered helping his father plant it.  I managed to get 1 -1/2 cords, or three truckloads of big wood.  After I split it, it will sit for a year to season before it can heat the house.

I usually get called into these big jobs because one of my saws is “logger sized” and there aren’t many of those around, and because I have experience dropping big trees.  Plus, I do it for free or for some of the wood.  Being a true “woodtick” I learned how to handfile chains.  Now a perfectionist would keep at it and get better, but I found it tedious and time consuming.  The result was that I ended up buying a sharpening attachment for a Dremel tool and using that.

It did a passible job, was quicker, and I managed well enough for several years.  Every so often, I would take a chain to a professional sharpener to get a good edge, and have the teeth evened out so it would go back to cutting straight, because my sharpening had gotten off.  It usually costs around $4.00 a chain.

But after these two weeks, I just was not satisfied with how the saws were cutting until I pulled out a new chain.  The difference was significant.  So I started shopping for a bench style grinder.  The good ones cost between $2-300, which I knew I couldn’t afford and I wouldn’t use enough to justify.  I ended up taking a chance on a Chinese copy from Harbor Freight that was on sale over at their store for $42.  The chainsaw guys say they do a respectable job, although not without some issues.

The other night I set it up and sharpened 7 chains.  Last night I took my worst worn chain, put it on the big saw and went out back to cut up a large piece so it would fit in the splitter.  It cut as good as the new chain the other night.

So I am happy and figure that the sharpener has already paid for over half of its cost.  I’ve got more trees lined up to cut, so I’m thinking it was a prudent investment.  Any woodtick will tell you that that secret is not how big the saw is, but rather how sharp the chain is.  And a sharp chain is a safe chain!

Bicycles…well, they’re standing right next to the work bench where all of this grinding takes place.  I’m not spending any money, but I am window shopping for some S240 camping gear.  Riv has a decent sleeping bag, REI has a nice tent, and Dick’s has a Thermarest knock-off that looks pretty nice.  It seems like a small multi-fuel stove might be the ticket for anything longer than a day trip.

I’m also considering a Jandd front Expedition rack.  The Jandd seems to be reasonably priced and functional, and allows running panniers low with a wide top deck for strapping things down.  I’ve discovered that my little Trek rack isn’t that great at securing actual panniers, although it does a fine job for strapping stuff down.

(Much nicer than mine and not a Jandd, but you get the idea of where I’m headed.)

I’m not sure how good the LHT will ride with a “front-loader” setup.  I’ve seen a few Rivs this way and I kind of like the look, but I read from the purists that it has to do with fork trail.  That whole argument might be overrated, and it’s all going to come down to a combination of cost and functionality.   For all I know, a typical rear rack set up might be the final result.  The big thing at this point is research, and learning before leaping.  I’m hoping that next summer will bring on some nice overnight trips. 

In the meantime, I’m mentally getting ready for a winter’s worth of night rides.