Category: cycling

Functional / Safe Rear Wheel

Published May 2, 2009

After getting home from Danielle’s house (and listening to one episode of This American Life each direction) I spent some time finishing off my rear wheel. Once it was dished to my satisfaction, trued, and reassembled I fitted it to my bike and went for a series of test rides. The tire was the Continental TravelContact at 55psi, which is what was on the bike when the last two nipples broke.

The first was a rather uneventful jaunt around the neighborhood using the Winwood Decksters, so then I decided to go for a bit longer ride. After donning a headlight I took off on the ~15 mile local loop, up to (and through) River Bends, back down 21 Mile, through a neighborhood, then over to my house. Along this entire route I made a point of keeping my weight over the rear wheel as much as possible, especially when going up sidewalk aprons, over large cracks in the pavement, roots, sticks, etc. Basically, I was trying to put a bit more than normal (for me) force on the wheels.

Half-way through the ride, in River Bends, a quick check showed that the wheel was just as true as when I’d left the house. Even better, I wasn’t hearing any of the occasional spoke-twang sounds from that wheel. They were still occasionally there from the front (especially when cornering hard), but the rear was spot-on.

I’ll definitely be rebuilding the front wheel in the same way quite soon. Hopefully that will be the last time I touch them.

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Nipples: Replaced

Published May 2, 2009

After four and a half hours (or so) of work, all of the alloy nipples in my geared bike’s rear wheel have been replaced. While the wheel is pretty true (maybe 0.5mm out at the largest spot) the dishing is still about 5mm off, so I’ll have to do more playing another day.

Also, that image above shows one of the feeler gauges recommended in the Wheelpro Book. It seems to work pretty well, although I do need to get better at using it. I imagine that will take quite some time.

(I also must fix the damned Park SW-40 spoke wrench. Its got a nice head on it, but the curved handle part bends too far over the head, so when the spoke comes off of the nipple at a slight angle the tool gets stuck in place.)

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Plastic Bottles from Sally Beauty Supply

Published May 1, 2009

Plastic bottles purchased from Sally Beauty Supply for applying boiled linseed oil to bicycle wheel parts.

At lunch today I purchased these two plastic bottles from Sally Beauty Supply to be used in applying boiled linseed oil to the spokes and nipples when rebuilding my bicycle wheels. I think I’ll give this a go after work today, as I’ve got a bit of time this evening and I could use a nice, focused, new project like this.

I’m just hoping that the hole on the tip of the larger bottle is small enough to allow for one drop at a time. It’s about 1mm, so I think it should be sufficient. If not, I guess I’ll just go to a dollar store, buy some cheap eye drops, empty the bottle, then use it. I think this will be all right, though.

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Wheelpro Truing Stand

Published April 26, 2009

Wheel truing stand based off the design in the Wheelpro Wheelbuilding Book.

Having had some wheel problems lately I’ve been wanting to build a truing stand. Well, tonight I did.

The stand above is based on the one in the Wheelpro Wheel Building Book, except made with 3/4″ plywood and unfinished. I still have to make some alignment tools and get another 1/4-20 machine screw for the base. Here is a photo another Wheelpro stand with some tools, built by a cabinet maker and with a melamine finish, originally from this page.

I think that I probably spent five or six hours building the stand, but as it only cost about $32 and I enjoyed making it, I think it’s worthwhile. An hour and a half or so was spent working the steel for the dropouts, but as I don’t have any real metal working tools it was a bit difficult. I also had a problem with a bit of tear out on the plywood, which is likely because I wasn’t paying attention to the direction of cut versus top layer grain, and had a multi-purpose blade on my saw. I’m also not great at woodworking, and hadn’t done anything with a table saw in at least two years.

It could have been a lot cheaper too, but being a Sunday when I went to purchase parts I ended up buying everything at Lowes. This meant $4.66 for four flat-head machine screws, $7.67 for the steel used for the dropouts, and $6.27 for the 2′ x 2′ piece of birch plywood. There was also the $4.35 countersink that I bought, then stupidly tried to use on steel, completely ruining it, relegating it to the trash can. Yes, I had to buy steel because I did not have any scrap pieces sitting around the house. At least now I do…

It also would have been possible for me to build a simpler stand, but this one seemed to do everything I wanted. The right dropout slides to accommodate different width hubs, it works fine with 26″ or 700c (29er) wheels, and it’s quite sturdy. This week I’ll have to order some replacement nipples for my wheels and find some time to make the alignment tools, then actually figure out how to tension a wheel after undoing it. That is, actually use the stand.

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Mud!

Published April 25, 2009

Very muddy Bianchi D.I.S.S. after a ride through Stony Creek and River Bends. All the mud came from the two-track or paved trails and not single track.

After last night’s ride around Stony Creek and today’s jaunt through River Bends, my bike is nicely muddy. Interestingly, all of the mud on there came from two track flooded paved trails and not any of the single track.

Now that I’m home I just have to sit around a while longer until I stop sweating, shower, and shave. Two bike rides in my legs are a bit filthy, and I’m sure there’s quite a stink coming from my various regions.

Later today should be interesting, because there are straight line wind / tornado-type weather coming. Looks like it’ll be here in about two hours. This could get exciting. Good thing I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do in the house.

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Sunset at Stony Creek

Published April 25, 2009

Last night I met up with some friends at Stony Creek to ride the mountain bike trails there. Since I’m having problems with the rear wheel of one bike I brought my single speed with its new 2:1 gearing. This was a really nice, casual ride around all the single track once, then another run through The Pines for, as Kristi put it, “dessert”.

Surprisingly, I found this to be a really nice gearing for riding there. Because I’m familiar with the trail, hill climbs were difficult but not terrible. Nor did I spin out (get to a point where I can no longer pedal fast enough to keep the freewheel engaged) on flatter parts where I need to build up speed for upcoming hills.

All in all, I think this is a nice gearing for trails that I’m more familiar with. I think that after I finish eating some breakfast I’ll head over to River Bends and ride around a bit there before the forecasted thunderstorms roll in.

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Broken Spoke, Again!

Published April 22, 2009

I’m not happy. Today as I was preparing my bike for a ride tomorrow evening and commute on Friday morning I fitted the Continental TravelContact tires that I prefer for pavement riding. As soon as it was all together I took the bike for a quick ride around the parking lot to check for problems when I started hearing something odd out of the rear wheel. Pulling back into the garage and checking the trueness of the wheel I found that another nipple is broken and my wheel is now rather out of true.

This really disappoints me. The wheel was just taken to Fraser Bicycle and Fitness who supposedly fixed the other nipple and checked the wheel over and trued it. Since that I’ve ridden it only 50 miles or so, none of it being particularly rough offroad.

In order to deal with this I think that my next project after the SDrive NUXX will be to build a wheel truing stand and build myself a set of wheels. Brass nipples, nice spokes, decent rims, and decent hubs will hopefully result in something excellent. Also, this way if anything goes wrong I know that I’m to blame and where things may have gone wrong.

Now, to figure out what to do about the current nipple… I guess I could try sorting that out myself. It’s almost tempting to buy new spokes and nipples then disassemble and rebuild my existing wheels. As long as the rims aren’t trashed (which they shouldn’t be) that’d sort them out nicely. Presuming I do a good job, of course.

Maybe I’ll just ride the single speed in the mean time.

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32:16 (2:1)

Published April 19, 2009

Sixteen-tooth Shimano freewheel (SF-MX30 16T) installed on a Surly hub on the rear end of my Bianchi D.I.S.S. single speed.

Today I finally got around to installing the Shimano SF-MX30 16T freewheel on the Bianchi D.I.S.S., replacing the 18T that was there. This takes the gear ratio from 32:18 (1.778:1) to 32:16 (2:1), which should be nice for flatter single track stuff where I’d end up practically spinning out. Hill climbs may be difficult, but hopefully I’ll still be able to make it. If I can’t I guess I can just go back to the 18T.

Since a threaded rear hub is required to use a freewheel like this, I’m tempted to get a track cog and lockring to try it as a fixed-gear mountain bike. This could go very, very wrong, though.

While fitting the freewheel I ended up cleaning up the drivetrain, washing the chain in solvent and then re-lubricating it. After the winter riding it was pretty grimy and needed a bit of work. After cleaning it up I tried out the Park Tool CC-3 which, as can be seen here, nestles into the chain to show if it is beyond 0.75% or 1% stretched. As the 0.75% side didn’t fit into the chain, it’s just fine to continue using.

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Sore Trapezius

Published April 16, 2009

It seems that the rocky / rooty trails at Island Lake and Maybury which we rode on Monday took a bit of a toll on me. Yesterday morning my back/neck was a little bit sore, and a bit of research showed that it was likely my trapezius muscle on the right side of my body. Since it wasn’t too sore yesterday I headed out for a paved ride on the Macomb Orchard Trail, which ended up being a bit over 20 miles.

Once back at the car I found that I was a good bit more sore, but just wrote it off as a problem from leaning over the bike for a while. However, when I woke up this morning I found that I can’t really turn my head without a good bit of stiffness and soreness.

I think that this point I just need to stay off my bike for a few days and rest up, then maybe do some elevated leg pushups or something else which will build up these muscles a bit. This is a bit disappointing as today and Friday are forecasted to have really nice biking weather, but that’s just how things go. At least I’ve got other things which I can be working on in the mean time.

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Island Lake and Maybury

Published April 13, 2009

Jon and Bob standing outside of Bob's van after a cold (but nice) day riding at Maybury. Prior to this we were at Island Lake.

Having today off (Easter Monday Holiday), I ended up heading out to some mountain bike trails with some friends from the MMBA, Bob and John. Starting quite early this morning we took off towards the west side of the Detroit area, and ended up riding Island Lake and Maybury (both loops of each), with a break to eat lunch at Leo’s Coney Island and stop by Trail’s Edge.

Since I’d never ridden either of those trails it was a nice new experience, and I’ll definitely be visiting them in the future. They are both about the same level of technical difficulty that I’m accustomed to, but much longer in length. I imagine that once the weather is a bit nicer (read: warm enough for shorts) they’ll be a whole bunch of fun.

Today wasn’t so nice, necessitating shorts and a jacket and full finger gloves. Since I only have wind/waterproof full finger gloves Bob loaned me his Fox Digit gloves, which worked out great. If I’m needing to buy some for myself I think I’ll get these.

After arriving home at 6:30ish I showered, picked up some fish and chips from Chicken Shack, then watched a bunch of Season 3 of The Office. Now, bed. I’ve got lots of work waiting for me in the morning.

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