Tag: bicycle

Weekend Recap – Movies, Rides, BBQ

Saturday

Saturday started off with a drive down to Santa Monica for a screening of Ride the Divide put on by Erik Mathy of 1Gear1Cause fame. The movie was awesome, it really put the difficulty of the ride into perspective. For readers not familiar, the Divide race is an informal unsanctioned race along the continental divide that was pieced together from a collection of forest service, ranch, logging and other dirt roads and trails by the Adventure Cycling Association. The route is over 2700 miles with 200,000 feet of vertical climbing, and the racers that do complete are averaging it in around 20 days, that is really hard to think about when you sit down and think about the sustained daily averages.  Erik had organised the screening as part of his pursuit to raise funds and awareness in the battle against cancer and will be riding the race next year on a single speed Salsa Fargo. Prior to the race Erik had ridden down the coast with Jason and Joe from Salsa and Eric from Adventure Monkey. It was great to meet these guys after reading on their blogs about their inspirational adventures and photography for so long.  Salsa had helped to sponsor the event, and after the movie there were raffle prizes from Swerve, Ergon and 1Gear1Cause, as well as water bottles from Salsa.  I won the first draw and took home a set of Ergon Grips, the only time I came in first all day.  Thanks guys

After the movie everyone headed over to Topanga reek Bicycles for a BBQ and ride. If you are in the area and have not been to their shop yet, you are really missing out.  They are one of the few shops have been to in southern California that actually sell and STOCK touring bikes and gear, Arkel, Brooks, Berthoud, surly, salsa, tubus etc.  Great shop and great people.  The food and company were great.  After the BBQ most of the group headed on a ride up Santa Maria Rd for a little dirt and single-track in the Mulholland area.  Genius that I am, I had all my camera gear, tripod too, and even my 6lb Ulock.  It is likely I was hauling more gear than the guys did on their tour.  Needless to say I was running sweep the whole time and my legs were feeling dead, thanks to the whole crew for waiting for me to catch up more than once.  Again though it was a  great time.  Here are a couple of pics from the trail:
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I was pretty Lazy with the camera and hopefully some others will chime in with more pics from the ride.

Sunday

Sunday was back to normal 22 mile loop to the farmer’s market at Chanel Islands Harbor.  It was a beautiful day and a chance to run at my own pace, working out yesterday’s sore legs.  The haul was not as big this time, but respectible:
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The Rawland performed well when front loaded.
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I am working on a writeup for later this week on the Bruce Gordon rack and bag set up I have switched to with this bike.  Even with 20-30 lb loade on the front the handling has been fine, but that is another post.

Fun weekent, lots of time in the saddle, and it feels good.

Rack Mount for Dinotte 140L Tail Light

While I have loved my DiNotte 140L tail light for a few years now it has been a mixed relationship due to the mounting.  If you are not familiar with these lights they are extremely bright AA powered LED lights with a very simple O-ring mounting system.  While elegantly simple the mounting requires attachment to a round tube, i.e. handlebars, seat post or frame tubes.  Not so easy when you have an assortment of racks and bags that can block the light from behind defeating the whole purpose.  I have a Old Man Mountain "Cold Springs" rack on the back of my Rawland.  This rack combined with my saddle bag has always left me a bit challenged with mounting solutions that leave the light visible, yet allowing for a  secure place to mount the battery pack and panniers. 

Then I had my eureka moment while modeling ideas with a short piece of scrap dowel.  I will expand on my love of dowels and wood for prototyping in a future post.  This time I only needed a short piece less than 2 inches long, drilled a hole through the center, and filed some grooves in the top side for O-ring retention.  I ran a long M5 bolt through the mounting track on the rack and bolted the mount between the rack and wheel.

I used the light this week in the rain on multiple rides, and it worked fantastically.  The cord is the perfect length to put the battery pack into the side pocket of the carradice bag, and everything has stayed in place.

This light when mounted well will not blind approaching motorists but they will have little excuse to not see you.  I have found that even on the lower powered non-blinking settings cars still give far wider birth when passing then with any other tail light in my collection.  Hopefully this or a similar solution can be adapted to help you better mount your own tail light far a safer night ride.

Bikes in the Garage – Rawland dSogn

My Rawland dSogn has been one of the best value bikes I have ever put together.  I was able to pick up the frame and fork as a blem in the fall of 2009 and build it up almost completely from components I had in the garage, keeping the utility to out-of-pocket cost ratio very high.  These were designed to be run as 650b mountain bikes with a heavy nod to the bridgestone Bridgestone XO-1.  Many of the bikes designed and sold by bridgestone during the 90’s were intended to be as versatile as possible and not just a “mountain bike “or “road bike”.  The sogn’s design intent was to be everything from your dirt road touring to daily commuter.  While designed for 650b x 55mm tires, the disc brakes allowed me to easily build mine up as a 700c x 42mm and still have room for fenders when things get wet.  The rest of the build settled into the following after a few changes:

Handle bar: Nitto RM013 Riv Dirt Drop
Levers: Shimano Tigra
Shifters: Shimano Bar end / Suntour Barcon NOS
Cables/Housing: Jagwire Ripcord
Stem: Velo Orange
Tape: Soma Thick and Zesty
Bell: Crane Brass (mounted to drilled and tapped spacer)
Headset: Chris King Sotto Voce
Brakes: Avid BB7 Disc Road
Seatpost: Salsa Shaft  
Saddle: Brooks B-17  
Bottom Bracket: Shimano cartridge
Crankset: Shimano Shimano LX vintage 94bcd 
Pedals: Sakae Low Fats (I have wide Feet)
Tires: Jack Brown Green – Panaracer FireCross – Schwalbe Marathon Extreme
Rims: Velocity Dyad 40h
Hubs: Whit industries M16
Bags: Carradice Nelson longflap and Carradice Hobo bag (Rivendell Prototype)
Racks: Old Man Mountain Sherpa rear and Bruce Gordon front

I have used this bike as my weekend produce hauler, after work mountain bike, 200K ride, mixed terrain bomber, commuter and rain bike.  While the ride is not nearly as lively as the Roadeo, it is still far better than either the Surly Cross Check or the Haro Mary that this bike replaced.  The steel frame is comfortable for long days in the saddle, especially with loads, and does not leave me feeling beat up. 

While not my “One” bike, this one has come close, and there are only a few tweaks I would make if it were ever to be replaced.  I would not say it is perfect, but when cost is factored in, as well as level of expectation for an off the shelf production bike it is an excellet value.