totient: (bike)
Twelve or thirteen years ago I picked up a vintage blue-and-white Italian bike frame to build up for fun, fast-ish rides. Shortly after that I bought a very similar (but red) bike on Craigslist, put 144 miles on it in the first 48 hours I owned it, and then proceeded to work on that bike instead (including some work that really should have happened before I put any miles on it at all, but see above re "fun").

The red bike has started to have some rust issues and the next project for it is to strip off all of the parts, have the rust and paint knocked off, deal with its paint at length, and generally do more work than fits into the amount of time I want to be without a fun bike. So I have, for years now, been planning to build up the blue and white bike with the parts from the red one as the first step of that project. But first, it needed some work.

Like a lot of people I find myself facing a lot of things lately that I can only sporadically deal with, and also looking at reality a lot more closely than is exactly comfortable. I try to deal as I can, but sometimes I need a really powerful procrastinatory device, one that has some theoretical use to keep me engaged and where I can feel like I'm getting somewhere. You know the drill -- organizing the bookshelves, cleaning out the basement, maybe a work project for those of us who have jobs that give us suitable projects. Something that gives me the illusion of control.

So today I hauled out that blue and white bike frame, spent a bunch of time getting dirt and sticker residue off of it, put on new branding stickers that I'd picked up a while ago, and hit it with a thin clear coat to protect the stickers and maybe slow down the rust some before the same fate befalls it as did the red one.

Mino Denti Italian bike frame with fresh stickers and a little bit of clearcoat

As a bonus, I used up two of the physical "to-do" items on my workbench, which gives me the physical and psychic swap space to get some actually useful work done.

We'll see how that goes.

wrenching!

May. 3rd, 2020 05:21 pm
totient: (Default)
One of the several skills I have that I don't use as much as I'd like is bicycle maintenance. I have a whole backlog of projects and all the tools I need and a pretty good spare parts situation. But today I took my bike stand out into the back yard in the glorious weather, and put my Trek 520 up on it, and spent a happy couple of hours doting on the bike. It needed new cable housing in both sections between the right barcon and the rear derailleur, and also I upgraded from 4mm to 5mm, which meant new ferrules. I also replaced the (fairly new) cable since that's easier than threading a used cable through new housing. Then I took off the rear brakes and worked on getting the gunk out of them. They have a somewhat complex mechanism that gives a great response curve, but is prone to gunking up. After a bunch of scrubbing and WD-40 I wound up soaking them in mineral spirits to get rid of it all, and then oiling up the joints so they'd move smoothly and evenly. There are two springs on each side and the secondary springs were pretty far out of adjustment, so I got those nicely evened up too. Since I now had some contaminated mineral spirits, and also a dried out travel pack of baby wipes, I went to town on the other grime on the bike until I ran out of dead baby wipes.

While I was prepping for this work I fired up the grill and made myself a lovely burger for lunch. Soon I'll fire up the grill again to make myself some lovely steak tips for dinner.

Some folks walking past on the bike path commented quite audibly wondering why the siding on our house is so miscellaneous. I offered to explain but evidently they preferred having a mystery to an answer.

shakedown

Jul. 6th, 2010 12:41 pm
totient: (wrench)
This current round of work on the Cannondale is pretty extensive, and it's leading up to quite a long trip. So one shakedown ride is not enough. So far I've put in 75 miles in four rides, and found problems with the fender positioning, the rear derailleur adjustment, the front brake lever, the rack-top bag, the rear water-bottle bracket, and I don't even remember what else. And there are still things undone from the original list.
totient: (wrench)
Before the upcoming Big Trip, and ideally before this weekend, I need to do the following things to the Cannondale (which is currently sitting patiently on the repair stand waiting for me):

- Mount and adjust new rear brake. I have two possibilities on hand, both of which have issues to be solved before they can be mounted, but I believe I can resolve at least one set of issues.
- New rear brake cable and barrel adjuster. I have plenty of these on hand, too.
- Plug brake boss holes if (as it turned out) the brake I can get mounted is the caliper brake.
- Adjust front brake tension. It's a V-brake, so this is two springs (maybe only one of which needs to be adjusted) and a cable.
- Trim and solder front and rear brake cables.
- New bar tape. I know I have some cellotape, but I don't want to use that on the Cannondale. I can't remember if I have any cork tape on hand or not.Thanks, [livejournal.com profile] desiringsubject, the yellow cork tape looks great.
- New bar-end caps. I have plenty of these.
- Two new water bottle cages and hardware. These I expect to buy from Tyler at Paramount.
- New front rack. I don't have one of these, and I'm not sure if I'm ready to shell out $80 for the (very nice) one Tyler has on hand or if I should get one somewhere else.
- Tighten down rear rack screws.
- Do something about the fenders. I'm not willing to spend money on this, but if I have a nicer front fender than what's there now I want to swap it in, and I need to figure out which of the rear fenders I have is the nicest and put it on (there's no rear fender on right now).
- New computer. I have several of these kicking around and one of them might even work.
- Check wheel bearings. I'm hoping these don't need a repack, or at least that the rear wheel doesn't need a repack. Bearings are in fine shape.

One of the brake issues is the lack of a custom Cannondale part. Anyone have or know of a wrecked Cannondale frame I can steal a rear cantilever brake boss from? It doesn't look like they unscrew from the frame, but they do. It has to be Cannondale; everyone else uses a standard M10 thread but Cannondale is Imperial 5/16 x 18TPI. [livejournal.com profile] frobzwiththings is right: retapping is the right answer, since I have plenty of M10 bosses on hand and especially since my guiding philosophy on the Cannondale is to make it as easily serviceable on the road as possible. But that can wait another 1000 miles.
totient: (patch)
I just changed a rear tire without using tire-irons, and without getting any dirt or grease anywhere except on my hands.

My coworkers tell me I should get a patch for my sash now.
totient: (bike)
The timestamp of this post was the exact end of the cycling season: a salt truck just drove past. Now it's time to tear down the Ciocc to get it repainted over the winter, and to prep the Cannondale for some winter riding.
totient: (Default)
Last night, I saw several posts in my flist about yesterday having been particularly productive, but held off on posting myself until I had a chance to see if my bike wrenching had been successful. Now I can report that it has: the Ciocc is back on the road, and after a week off the bike and two more weeks mostly not timing my rides on the Cannondale, I'm back to updating my ride times.

new toy

Oct. 13th, 2008 08:32 pm
totient: (bike)
Yesterday I drove down to Westwood to pick up a new toy: a 52cm (c-c) 80's-vintage Ciocc bicycle, with mostly period Campy parts. It didn't need much to get it on the road, though I'll probably replace a few things in the next couple of months to improve the fit and modernize the (6-speed!) drivetrain a little. I wasn't planning to, but I just couldn't resist, so today I took it out for a 35-mile shakedown cruise. I'll want to adjust the front derailleur limits before I ride it again, and probably raise the seat a little and the bars a lot.

It's been a while (ok, 20+ years) since I rode a steel bike. I caught myself climbing with mixed hand positions a couple of times, a la Eddy Merckx (or was it Bernard Hinault), for the first time since high school. The ride is connected to the road without being rough; riding it is a joy. I'm looking forward to putting a lot more miles on it very soon.
totient: (Default)
I have a bike frame! Nothing fancy in terms of weight or tubing, but exactly the geometry I want. Not sure how long Craigslist will keep the pictures up.

Dreamhost has free hosting for nonprofits! And they have every feature you could possibly want. So awesome. It'd be worth any nonprofit's money to get paid hosting from them, let alone free hosting.

Today's geohash for Washington, DC is 200 feet from the apartment Rachel and I rented when we lived there in 1996-1997. It's also an interesting geohash for LA (it's an easy hike in a pretty wilderness area) and Santa Cruz (which is 99% water) and a few other graticules.
totient: (Default)
Done today:
  • remove front brake (destructively)
  • clean frame and fork
  • repack headset, despite pitted cups (I got away with this one)
  • repack bottom bracket, despite pitted cups (I didn't get away with this one)
  • acquire new bottom bracket, derailleur pulleys, and miscellaneous cabling
  • replace bottom bracket
  • clean and lubricate front derailleur
  • disassemble, clean, and lubricate rear derailleur
  • install rear derailleur cable
To do tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday):
  • acquire correct new derailleur pulleys (or possibly entire new rear derailleur)
  • reassemble rear derailleur
  • fiddle with rear derailleur until it will retract fully
  • reinstall handlebars
  • install new front brake
  • install and adjust new brake levers and cables
  • tape handlebars
  • clean and reinstall right crank
  • install new left crank (thanks, Kit!)
  • reinstall left pedal
  • repack wheel bearings, if necessary (I hope not)
  • clean, true, and attach wheels
  • install new chain
  • adjust derailleur stops
  • install fender (or rear rack, if fender is unsuitable)
  • clean and reinstall headlight

!rally

Jun. 25th, 2005 11:27 am
totient: (yield)
I'm not in Franconia today.

[livejournal.com profile] candle_light and I were planning to head up for the Big Lap rally. We'd have had to be there by 8 and it's a 2.5 hours drive, so I reserved a hotel room for last night. And since I thought it would be silly to make such a long drive in two cars, I planned to meet up with her at a party in Wilmington in the evening. [livejournal.com profile] miss_chance would be stopping by Wilmington and could retrieve the car, so I could drive there and she could drive home.

[livejournal.com profile] candle_light and family have an outing in southern NH today, and she was planning to go directly there. No problem; there's plenty of public transport from various points along the way, so I spent a bit of time compiling different ways to get back into town depending on the exact timing of our return from the far northern reaches. The most likely answer was a $15 bus ride from Concord, NH, as that added the least amount of driving to the weekend. But the fact that I was contemplating ways to cut five minutes of driving out of the weekend made me think that maybe driving to Franconia for a road rally was just too much driving at the expense of all the other things I'd also like to be doing this weekend.

Meanwhile there was ongoing doubt over whether [livejournal.com profile] candle_light and I wanted to drive up the night before or just go up in the morning from her place, but that's just background babble for this story.

Then around 10 got a call from [livejournal.com profile] miss_chance. From Vermont. She wasn't going to be stopping in Wilmington, and could I get the car back to Somerville so she could drive it to work in the morning? By the time I could get back to the party, [livejournal.com profile] candle_light would be at her house packing up for the drive north. Or I could get the car to someplace else that [livejournal.com profile] miss_chance could find, or find someone else to drive it back, or... and at this point I realized that the logistical knot had reached Gordian proportions and did the appropriate thing.

So today, I get to put my bike back together, which I've been wanting to do for a long time. I can't wait.

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totient: (Default)
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