Ride Lugged

to sean, and whoever else reads this that’s a better mechanic than I…

my bridgestone has been having two issues that I cannot resolve without a full teardown and alot of cursing.  maybe some smart reader can help me.  i’ll mail you a ping pong sized ball of bee’s wax for your troubles, always handy…

issue 1:  weird rumble strip feeling pedaling at about 15 mph.  the bike slightly shakes and vibrates as though riding over really small and closely spaced rumble strips.  guess: hub bearings?  Am Classic grease guard hubs, regreased every few months with park grease, shimano 8 speed cassette, sram 8 speed chain (new, cassette not new) TA cranks and rings, new rings, 30 year old arms, new phil BB, suntour derailluers…

Any ideas?  I’ve never felt it on anouther bike, and it is only present at certain speeds, but mentally it feels like the power is being drained into the vibrations, and it feels rather unnerving.

Issue 2:  Suntour VGT derailluer, rated to at least a 30 tooth rear cog, wont stay in the granny/big cog combo under load, at all.  I would maybe blame it on the old cassette, but its the 30 tooth, not the 15, so what gives?  Mark suggested too short a chain, but that only makes sense in the 46/30 combo, besides i just put a new chain on and measured it right…

The beeswax is organically grown, and i scraped it off the porch floor from some melted candles.  It still works great, and is pretty clean too.  I use it all the time.

people complain to me that i dont warn them well nuff in advance of rides that are coming up. so, mark yer calendars: oct 20th, 65 mile mixed surface ride up here in beautiful state college. details to come but at least mark that say and maybe the next one if you want to drink beer while lolling around my house. all are welcome, even John, who brings bad juju but only bad juju for himself. (two broken frames in 1 year?) i am gunna try to get starmer to make a seperate web site for it so you dont have to dig around in here to find info.

last year’s ride was good, and i have eliminated 99 percent of all roads over 45mph.

daniel is making a re-appearance as the west coast guy who drank a bottle of rum and lot of cheap beer, puked twice in the driveway, rolled outta bed 2 minutes before the ride started the next day, stuffed a polaroid camera, a hat, gloves, a vest, arm warmers and food into his jersey pockets, rode a mexican colnago with a loose stem, 3 sizes too small, fixed, on a 46/16 gearing, and didnt pee the entire ride and still beat everyone up the hills.

hopefully starmer is making his reappearance as the guy who needs walking shoes.

cory wont be there, as the fund to fly him out here never really took off, but maybe someone new to the ride will come.

hey kids,

I wanna go do the D2R2 up in Massachusetts but I dont wanna go alone, for reasons of gas, moral support, and the need for people who are slower than me to feel good about myself.  (kidding, not really)  I want to blow it all out and do the 100 miler, why not?   For those who remember Meg, she’ll be going, as she lives up there and shit.  Maybe we can camp in her backyard by the compost heap.  Meg?  Can we can we?

It looks like it will make my rides seem tame, and it’s seventy dollars to ride, so if that, plus the 7 hour drive doesnt put you off, lets go!  Leave a comment if you are down.

info and link here

so louis vuitton has two interesting distinctions going for it: they make the ugliest, yet most copied, expensive bags for women with to much money and or no sense what-so-ever.  so it was interesting when Mikhail called up the folks at the ridelugged press office to announce he was shilling for a fruity/crappy french company.  it seems he lost a bet with Putan, although he claims he ‘wanted’ to shill his name out.  anyway, we got exclusive outtakes from the photo sessions, including two never before seen photos, one of the prototype Mikhail bag, shaped like his ubiquitous head marking thing (birth mark? curse of the capitalist? alien abduction map of St Andrews 16th hole?) and the other photo of Mikhail’s revised french-ified head thing (stain from a brain drain? bruise from a boxing match with the gipper?).  anyway, here are the world exclusive photos.

each bag is said to contain 500,000,000 soviet era rupees, the current equivalent of $1.29.

the jury is out (and mikhail aint tellin’) whether this is a brand (ha) or a result of something more nefarious (genetic birthmark rebranding, too much fois gras, a bad night on the town with Scarlett).

well, i am back from germany, and whew, what a trip that was.  i ate at least 15 lbs of saurkraut, and the smell is still oozing from my pores.  so i was checking my email today, (as one does) and saw the top ten ‘yahoo’ searches of the day.  frankly they seemed a bit dubious, like alberto gonzales at john ascroft’s death bed, but funnier.

here they are:

1. marilyn monroe 2.  the company TNT (what is that) 3.  lead poisoning 4.  beowolf (um, what top 10 is this?)  5.  chelsea handler (who is that) 6.  franka potente (again, who is that) 7. frittata recipes 8.  deep brain stimulation (i use my finger)  9.  jabberwocky (i find it hard to believe that a poem that old is in the top 10)  and lastly stevie wonder

historical note:  ride lugged was #11.

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next item of bidness:  local frame builder ellis dunklebarger is trading me some services (ie i have access to a sandblaster and he dont) for some braze-on work.  30 bucks gets me internal brake wiring, fender and rack mounts, a canti hanger, centerpull studs, and generator wiring routing things for my fork.  as soon as he gets a web site, i’ll post it.  his cross frames are amazing.  (lugged too)

only question: what color the bike?

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cyclesport junkies have already seen this, but those of us in the dark ages havnt.

specialized has made a high tech (ha) new centerpull that would look great if it wasnt red and was maybe a little bigger, clearance wise.  are we seeing the rebirth of yet anouther french idea?  i hope campy goes to huret derailluer threading next year, to save weight.

the clearances arnt too bad, maybe a 28…

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honda wisely scrapped the super plastic-y looking bumpers on the ‘element’ and campy bought up all the left overs and farted this thing out.  could it look any more like a walmart/honda/campy collaboration?  the gold pivots are ultra tacky with the matt black knuckles.

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sram on the other hand, saved weight by using steel, ha, for their new cassette, which looks nice and easy to clean to boot.

the back of the cassette is one big sheet of steel.  kinda hot.

ok, everyone who is interested in a jersey: as tom cruise would say to katie holmes, it’s go time.  (do you think he actually says that?)  i emailed portland cyclewear guy, and he said delivery would be about 2 weeks.  so, as soon as everyone signs over their 2nd born child (first one is always a bit tweaked right?) or 87 dollars in the form of a czech (check) for each jersey you want (make it 93 cory, shipping kills to the republic), i’ll get these ordered.  please go here to figure out what color you want and what size.  personally, i’m gunna get the med/r which i think basically means medium for fat guys.  note not all colors and sizes are in stock.  also note the price: that is without the tooling for the embroidery and without the embroidery itself.

so, shoot me a snail mail letter if you want to do this with a czech made out to james johnson, with size, color and what state you are from so we can represent on the bottom of the jersey.  also, your name & return address on that same sheet that has all that other info.  total time, my guess, from today, 4-5 weeks.  why? you mail me the money, i wait for it to clear, i order, i get, i ship, that alot of mail time.

PO Box 833, Lemont PA 16851

the sooner we get all the money, the sooner we can get these ordered.

du mußt nicht zurück gehen die Jahre 60ish, zum der schlechten deutschen Ideen zu finden. (english translation here)

wer sonst würde die Ampere Gabel nehmen, sie erheblich häßlicher und billig schauend bilden und aufladen 4mal so viel?

was ist der Punkt des Carbons, wenn du schräg ihn siehst? ich bedeute, diese Hebelklemmplatten definately Notwendigkeit spezielles Klebeband mit kundenspezifischen cutaways, (aka schpeedenholenz), also kannst du sehen, daß der Mitfahrer 200 Euro aufwendete, um 2 Gramm zu speichern. (vankentarden)

offensichtlich beförderte das diese Entwerfer havnt, das meinem Carbon gesehen wurde, Bäche oder mein faserverstärktes Diätprogramm mit der Eisenbahn.

auch Schlechtes sein hydraulisches (möglicherweise ist Vertigo? interessiert), wenn dieses es wouldnt Blickschlechtes an allen silbern war und wenn es zwei Stahlkabel anstatt benutzte, etwas Flüssigkeit floß die geöffnete Wunde, die der Irak ist.

nichts sagt, daß ich verzögert werde und meine Mamma mich ihre ausdrückliche Karte des Schwarzen morgens wie keramische Lagerriemenscheiben verlieh.

jenes arnt Deutsches ganz gutheißen, aber, sie konnten außerdem sein. wenn nur btp und fsa keramisches Lager Klemmplatten hebeln zusammenkamen und ließen, konnten sie die Welt übernehmen!

this was in the most recent VO blog post.  its kinda bizarr-o if you actually know what modernism is and when it ended.  so being an uncle walter type i posted this comment:

‘this next bit can be preceived as a rant or just a helpful comment, which is more what it is meant to be:

modernism is done.  technically it ended in the late 1970s.  there are things being made now that are in a modernist style, ie the sogreni parts, new nitto stuff, v-o bikes, ect.  things like this, being made now are just emulating designs that  rose to popularity during, in this case, high modernism.  anything being done now that attempts to represent a break with this utopian vision should, at least, be considered contemporary (if it is current) or, if it is reactionary to modernism (very loose debatable, blah blah blah) it could potentially be termed post modern.

i say all this cause the term modern gets tossed around alot, not only in the bike world, but on the news and in other literature and conversation.  to an artist or an architect or a writer or a musician saying something is modern when its really contemporary is like saying bebop existed into the 70s, or that a house has nice colonial brickwork.  it doesn’t, it has it in the colonial style.

so, i think all this is a good thing: modern sounds better than retro-grouch, and design-wise has better conotations.  i would much rather be associated with Eames than some loose concept of ‘retro’, which mainly implys a certain level of out-of-date.

i hope this was helpful rather than jerky sounding.  i really didnt want it to be.  V-O is a company which sells things in a modernist vein, and thats nothing to be upset about.’

perhaps the best products contain a degree of hybridization.  if we were to fully embrace certain bicycle related modernist precepts we would stuck with alot of crap.  derailluers that needed to be tensioned seperately of shifting, cruddy french specific threads, breakable stems, narrow handlebars, poor lighting.  the best design takes the best of everything, a combination of modernism and contemporary thinking, and combines it.  this hybridization, arguably, could be considered post-modernism.  its all arguable.  some would posit to say that we live in an age of late modernism.  huey.  the utopian ideals are so watered down at this point as to be a stagnant swamp, a cess pool of recycled cliches.  those who practice it now with an fervor, are little more than historical reenactors.  i actually don’t know anyone who does that though.  most frames use better lugs now than were avaible, much better derailluers, better tires, ect.  it might have some of the aesthetics, but its not the whole enchilada.  (not that there is anything wrong with that, or enchiladas)