so my world wide audience, i have returned from the trenches, and not only did i survive, but i emerge victorious. you may recognize the image i've posted. if you're thinking it looks remarkably like barbara, then you are correct good sir/madame! ho ho! yes, she is in fact back in my possession and - other than a few minor adjustments yet - ready to ride.
i'm making this quick, i just wanted to assuage any worries that may have been fermenting into some unfortunate autoimmune disorder that is often a result of severe anxiety. i'm not quite done yet and the hour is fast approaching, so i leave you with this. this is what kept me afloat during those dark times, and i thought i should share it with you.
so it's been a while, hasn't it? too long, i know, i know. it's my own fault. after i got everyone's interest boiling over just above indifference, i shirk my duties and all but vanish from the cybernetic secularist society. blame it on depression.
man, what a terrible week for planning a thousand mile bike tour it was! with the conviction that i had found a solution to my custom frame debacle in barbara, i rode cheery-eyed, and hopeful to a favorite used bike, repair shop to discuss options for downsizing my drive-train. steep climbs over the course of 80 mile days is imminent, so finding some low-gearing options is imperative. one of the simplest options i considered was installing a larger cogset coupled with smaller chainrings up front. this quick remedy for handling the hilly terrain was, in fact, the way jon went. i was glad we found him such a convenient solution. he was considering buying a new bike, but i was insistent that his current bike would do and that he could save his money for cheap hookers along the 101 truck stops. however, barbara, is an old french maid, which means she is timelessly sexy, but haughty, stubborn, and has weird sizing so that nothing except parts that were specifically made for her fit.
what this meant, was that downsizing my gear ratios was not as simple as installing smaller chainrings. one of the guys at re-cycles, suggested just replacing the entire crank, but since the crank is specific to the bottom bracket spindle then we'd have to replace the bottom bracket too. as long as we were talking used parts, this was all in theory reasonable and feasible.
and this is where the fun began. everything else was just paddling out. the drive-side crank wouldn't come off. i used the appropriate weird-sized crank puller and managed to strip the threads. evidently this was a notorious design flaw of those old suntour, aluminum cranks, i was happy to learn. fortunately, someone made a specific, horrific tool just in case such a thing happens. essentially, it is a big, wedge-shaped, two-pronged fork that you ensconce between the crank and bottom bracket shell that pries the crank away from the shell by hammering it. after cringing, and wincing from watching the mechanic hammer away at my avatar - meaning i could feel her pain, just as keenly as she could feel my own suffering, in case you're not into fantasy novels - for several unbearable minutes, i suggested maybe considering our alternatives. the mechanic paused and contemplated for a second, then replied, "yeah, i know..., we need a bigger a hammer."
he brought out his miniature sledge. i couldn't watch this time. i've never beat anything as hard as this man was pummeling my barbara. the crank, after enduring violent brutality, was resilient, impassive, yet battered. it didn't budge. the whole time i was offering possible, luke-warm routes. he finally decided on another course of action - which in all honesty, seemed like a creative variant of one of my ideas. with a combination of some tricky engineering and the death wedge, we got the cranks off. i'm not sure if i can ever use the cranks again. we had gone so far, and it was pointless to consider retreat.
that was friday. i left it there because there was one last stubborn bottom bracket cup left to be removed. he said he's soak it in some loosening agent over-night and remove it the next day. i was busy saturday as i had already made plans with the girlfriend, and i had little faith that he would be successful anyway. he was kind enough to send me home on a loaner bike.
they're open again tuesday. i'll keep you posted. it's a week before we set off, and i have no bike.
it's mostly a certain demographic and it's not easy to not be racist/sexist/etcist about it, but recently automobile drivers are becoming more brazen and more often. who they are is irrelevant because ignorance can plague any man, but what they do is infuriating. for instance, i'll be stopped at a stoplight, on my bike, waiting for it to turn green. then a car will pull up behind me and start honking as if i were a brain-dead cow they were trying to usher off the road so that they could pull up ten feet closer to the crosswalk.
one time in particular, a driver recognized me as a species capable of language and rolled down their window to holler at me to get off the road. i was overcome with anger. not fear. not annoyance. not love for my fellow, misguided man. no, it was wrath. however, not lacking self-control either, i merely looked behind me and yelled back that i had the same rights as a car.
"no you don't!" the driver replied without hesitation. after that comment i half expected the driver to proceed to run me over.
but then i replied, "in fact you are mistaken, ma'am/sir, because i do! now, please do everyone a favor and look it up!"
"go!" they hollered back.
i turned forward to see that the light had turned green and now i was holding up traffic.
hello loyal readers, we have on our itinerary a few items worth discussion. firstly, i managed to scrounge up those necessary bike parts for my barbara (see last post) for her reincarnation as a touring bike. upon inspection of these 30 yr-old parts, i was getting the sensation that maybe we would all benefit from a little investing in some newer components. the rear derailleur is missing a spring and the brake calipers are bulky - ancient technology. also, in light of my recent knowledge of bike fitting, i decided to see how well ol' barbara stands up to my ideal frame. utilizing the finest in ad hoc mock-ups, photoshop, a ruler and some simple trigonometry, i determined all the dimensions of babs. as it turns out, she was nearly perfect for me the whole time. the biggest discrepancies are in the handlebar height and stem length as you can see in the figure: compare the measured values to the values in the parentheses, the ideal numbers. i raised my stem a few centimeters and already it's more comfortable. i'd have to buy a new stem to shorten it the requisite amount, so that's something to look into.
moving on to more philanthropic matters... while i may lack the virtues of a good citizen, i try to associate with better men than myself not so that something decent might rub off, but really just so i get credit by association. leave it to a true altruist to set up a website benefiting the american cancer society. i think you're probably all aware of how these things work: if you have a soul and care about your fellow man, then you give money or if, on the other hand, if you hate humanity and especially those with cancer, then you keep your money: your call.
damn, this is a long friday, but i leave you with a picture of my latest welding masterpiece. if i could travel back in time and give this to my 14 yr-old self (i was a late bloomer, back off!) i'd be overcome with bliss knowing that my life would indeed be the alien slaughtering fantasy i'd longed for.
i never had a plan b, so don't go thinkin' i'm down to my 24th option, wise guy. no, plan x as in plan x-pletive, would be more correct - but still not accurate cuz no one really talks like that... i hope i got your hopes up cuz this is some bad news: my mentor, the machinist at sf state, won't be able to help me till the end of july. he explained he's going through something outside of work. i didn't press him about it because earlier this year his wife left him for his friend and maybe he has to appear in court to deny that greedy golddigga from hoarding all his gold. i can't be certain, but it's not my idea of a good conversation to bring it up.
don't think i gave up so easily, mind you. i told him i could work around his schedule, i could make any accommodations. i'd promise to pay attention, and wouldn't break anything else. i'm sure it was tough for him, but he still said no. sensitive topic, you see.
anyway, that leaves me in the obvious position of being bikeless for the trip. i'm still gonna sell my lemond, because it would be unreasonable to make that long of a trip on a bike too small for me. i did last year's trip on it - true, yes, thanks for paying attention - and my knees were sore for it. taking it this year guarantees at least 500 miles of throbbing knees. no way g.
with the money i get from selling the lemond i can buy some wash of a road bike just for the ride and then sell it again so it instantly loses 75% of it's value. that was pete's suggestion. it's not terrible, of course that's an option, but the whole point is to ride something you love. i would feel spiteful to the cheap bike the whole time, knowing in my heart that this bike is just for the time being, and that i'd drop it when it's convenient, as soon as i found my dream ride.
but i looked online anyway. i found this guy on craigslist. i wouldn't speak ill of this bike - not a great bike - but certainly a deal. i shot this guy a message asking for pix and he tells me he has none. this dude has a - at one time - thousand dollar road bike but no means of taking a picture of it and emailing it to me? the seller is from vacaville, sounds suspicious.
i didn't like that idea to begin with. that wasn't my plan x, this is my plan x: ride my other bike. my other bike, barbara, is an old, some people prefer the term vintage, '70's peugeot, px-10 that i converted to a fixed gear. i ride barbara everywhere. she's my daily commuter, my black, brooks saddle, filigreed lugs, fixed gear. thankfully, i still have all the old components that are useless on a fixed gear, namely gears and brakes to put right back on.
that's what i've decided. that'll be something to tell the kids about. my knees are tingling already.
and if you got this far, then i'm shocked at your remarkable amount of free time, but if you could spare a few more seconds then check out this blog - it's about this blog. but it's funnier. and it's authored by my terribly good friend, jon.
i found this relevant piece after much searching... why is it that youtube users insist on making youtube a miserable, miserable test of determination by uploading their genius inspired fan-slide shows set to their most favorite, most best band of all time? this example puts them to shame; he shares with us some of his thoughts, "sorry for the camra jerkyness but my dog jumped on me and i was multi-tasing so i couldnt hold it still... srry ... dwayne ..." you're okay kid. you're okay.
So that last post was from a scrapped blog project I started elsewhere, and since then there have been significant updates. First, my bike design: the first one here shows the relative positions of my seat and handle bars with respect to the bottom bracket. These three positions are the most important in determining the dimensions of your ride - as was told to me by the very helpful people at Cycle Sports. They are all certified by Serotta, a reputable bike builder to be sure, and this is the method they use. Once we have these specific three points in space, we can then spend days on end with BikeCAD to design the sweetest, most coolest looking bike you can dream of. The second image is the same bike design, but with it showing a different set of dimensions (BikeCAD is the shiznit). I'll share with you some of the reasoning behind my design. It'll be a bit technical. First, I chose a bottom bracket drop of 8cm. (To spare some of you a redundancy of terminology you can check out a glossary on BikeCAD). Most production bikes have a BB drop of closer to 7cm and a lot of people like this because the bikes feel nimble. But it's actually a dirty trick on your senses. The higher center of gravity that comes with a 7cm drop, makes the bike "twitchy", but not necessarily responsive. It feels quicker, but it's actually just a classic case of conservation of momentum. The same effect is felt when you and your friend stand on a short see-saw versus a longer one. That's not a proof, just an example. Anyway, I picked a lower bottom bracket for more stability. Serotta does this, and I'm a good listener.
The top tube has a slight angle in it of 2degrees. I wanted to build it with a horizontal tt, but then I would have to make up the height elsewhere to get the handle bars where they needed to be (as determined by those three special points in the first figure). And that would reguire a large positive angled stem (which are hideous) or a lot of spacers in the headset. I went with a subtle tt angle, thus making the stem angle and spacer height also more subtle - a comprimise.
Saturday/June/27/2008 Welcome. I suppose we should just get right into it then: This summer, right now in fact, I am planning on building a bike - that is, a bicycle - and riding it from Vancouver, Canada to San Francisco, San Francisco. This probably sounds more ambitious than it is. Allow me to catch you up; last summer a few friends and I rode our bikes from SFC to LA. It was around 500 miles and it took us 9 days (an admittedly casual pace). It's a common enough feat that hundreds (maybe thousands) of cyclists do a similar route every year for various events and charities. You might say it fringes on quotidian. I wouldn't because that would be kind of a jerk thing to say, especially for those of us without legs.
So while from Vancouver (which is pretty close to the Canada-US border, just to save you the trouble of finding a map) to the SFC is about twice as long as last year's trip, it is still sane enough. The x-factor, of course, will be that I will be constantly praying to all interested gods that my bike stays more-or-less intact the entire thousand miles. I'm sure an animal sacrifice will be in order at some point.
But to keep it in the true nature of the American Spirit, I have to be back in Marin by August, 16 for my friends' wedding. (They're marrying each other, hence the plural possessive). It couldn't have been planned this good - I just got lucky.
Of course, I will be getting much help for the frame design and construction. My friend, Peter Verdone, will be guiding me through the business of bicycle frame building. Peter has been doing this a lot longer than me and I feel confident under his instruction.
So when do we start? Right now. Four days ago in fact. It was a Tuesday...
I met with Pete, who is the machinist for San Francisco State's physics department, and we got some preliminary measurements and sketched out a draft of what my bike might look like using a slick program called BikeCAD (there is a free version online). This allowed us to determine, roughly, the correct size tubing I would need for my frame.
The next day I helped my girlfriend move into her new place in lovely Oakland, CA.
I came back Thursday to practice welding. I've welded for something on the order of minutes in my life so Pete told me to read some welding books. I found a dense volume and read the chapter on TIG welding. Thursday's lesson ended with me breaking the welding machine after only an hour of practice. It wasn't my fault, the water hose got a leak, but I offered to pay for it. Pete said he'd fix it on Monday.
Anyway, so come Friday I had a scheduled bike fitting appointment at Cycle Sports in Oakland. The bike fit would determine the precise dimensions of my ideal bike. They set me up on a fit bike and after about an hour and a half I was more informed on bike geometries than ever. It was really a shit-load of information and I'll be lucky if I retained half of it. Fortunately, they emailed me an excel spreadsheet with my ideal sizes and a program for determining different bike set-ups. It's all pretty involved, and I'll spare you the details now.
