Category: gear

Pedal Thoughts and Tinkering

I will admit it, I am a pedal snob.  I have big feet, like to ride in Keens, and hate little tiny pedals that only support out to my middle toe.  It always feels like my foot is about to roll off of the ends.  When I am looking at a new pedals the distance from the crank arm to the outer edge of the pedal is a big deal for me.  I have tried clipless systems, but found that the gains were not worth the need for an extra pair of shoes in most of the ways and places that I ride.  Most modern platform pedals are not really that wide, and off I went into the depths of vintage pedals.  My bread and butter has been the Sakae Low Fat, wider than the current MKS touring it has been a good pedal for me.  It works easily with clips and straps or naked for shorter rides with lots of stops and starts.  The downsides are weight, bulk and the general in-elegance of the clunky pedals on classically styled road bikes.  Enter my latest acquisition along this quest:

I recently scored a near new set of Specialized touring pedals.  Their MKS lineage is pretty clear.  They are as wide as my Low Fat MTB pedals, 30g lighter each, and look a whole lot prettier than most of today’s pedal offerings.  While nice they had some shortcomings out of the box.  The toe strap arrangement, appears ingenious,  but does not really work in the real world.  The strap makes its upward turn at the outer edge right into the bottom of my foot.  Off to the drawing board, I came back and turned my MKS large/deep toe clips into a new set of half clips.  This is my first set of half clips, so time will tell how they work out.  I made each a little different to see if, well if it makes any difference in function.

For now these will be going on my Roadeo, to get me motivated to put some miles on it while I am waiting for the Masu production samples.  I will let you know how it is going in a week or so.

Inspiration for New Bags

Everything old will be new again some day.  I love looking at the bags from days gone by to get inspiration for my newer bag designs.  Many details and features have gone by the wayside not because they did not work, but were often just not as easy to mass produce.  Today, while at the swap meet, I could not resist grabbing this Bergans ruck sack:

I usually just look around when at the swap meet or local thrift stores, and kind of mentally capture the ideas, but this bag has so much going on there was no way to take it all in at a glance, so it came home.  The amount of leather work alone would be hard to do at a reasonable price, not to mention the steel frame and other detailing.  The leather is soft as a lamb’s ear.  I threw it on with a small load and it is quite a comfortable bag.  A quick weigh in on the scale at just under 5 lbs, not bad at all considering the amount of steel and leather.  I am still working it all out, but am developing a saddle and porteur bag that would easily attach to the bike and work with rucksack harness like the one above.  While looking at more military surplus bags than I would like to admit, this is one of the nicest assemblies I have seen.

Most things like this bag end up as catch and release, but I think this one will be staying around a while.

 

Saddle Trade – Swift for Aspin?

I have given my Brooks Swift saddle a good chance to be the one, but have come to the conclusion that I prefer my Berthoud Aspin / touring saddle.  Before the swift heads off for sale I thought I would offer it up for trade, preferably for the above mentioned Berthoud. The swift is Antique Brown with chrome steel rails.  Condition is near new, treated with profhide on both sides and never ridden in the wet.  The break in is minimal, and the only downside is the slight indication of the saddle rail at the cantle plate.

 

Thanks for taking a look

Craft Fair Prep

It has been an incredibly busy week coming off of a 4 day break.  Today I made it out to ship off what is likely the last round of eBay auctions for the year.

The last few days have been mostly in the shop getting ready for a craft fair at my wife’s work, Patagonia.  This is a good thing as it forced me into putting a few of my ideas for soft goods into reality.  Fringe benefit will be some market research. 

You have already seen the touring wallets, now in the shop.  The neck gaiters are a fantastic solution for a scarf that can not fall off while you ride, and are in incredibly versatile layering piece to have in your kit.  The first round is made from some nice merino wool, I have two different weights on hand.  Also, hitting the market tonight will be my first round of prints, limited edition of 100.  I plan to offer these four times a year, themed to the season.  This one is “Winter Riding – California Style”.  All of this will be hitting the shop in the next few days.

If you are local and have the time, the craft show is tonight in the firehouse at the Patagonia campus, north building, 4-7 PM.  I have been bumping into more and more readers as of late, and that is probably a good thing.  Thank you as always for your readership and support.

Have fun – Play outside!

New Card Wallet

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.  After having business cards printed up it dawned on me that I need something to carry them in.  After a few hours in the garage working out a couple of prototypes, then some stress testing, followed by a quick round of market research, and then refine the design.  The result:

 Hand made with thick, but not too thick, full grain leather and skived edge.  Finally something useful to do with all the short pieces of chain I have been saving over the years.  These measure in at 3″ x 4″ x 1/2″ stuffed, will easily take 20 or so business cards or an I.D. and a couple of credit cards.  This drops right into your jersey or the small pockets on your touring bags, and is much lighter than the usual bulky wallet I carry.

The first four are committed to a local show later this week, I have enough leather on hand to make plenty of these in time for the Holidays.  Inital price is $30 plus shipping and handling.  These will be added to the shop soon, but in the mean time please drop me a comment to give me an idea how much I should be cranking these out.

Also in the pipeline: Neck Gaiters, Limited run of Poster Prints and frame sets (yes I said it, I have started working with a contractor here in the U.S.A.)