Baggage & mudguards

For the last couple of weeks I've been riding the Breakaway to work, and as far on weekends as motivation will allow.

I've changed saddles a few times, finally stealing the Brooks Pro Titanium from the Cecil Walker, though I'll probably go back to the Brooks Swallow when I have some more time to break it in.
I experimented with a couple of modern saddles, but the lack of mounting loops for my new Carradice Camper Longflap saddlebag was the final clincher. I got a beautifully made Bagman quick release adapter with the Camper, but even half-loaded the Camper nearly drags on the tyre. Attached to the Brooks saddlebag loops, the Camper has a couple of inches clearance.

The recent filthy weather drove me to fit a set of Bluemels B35 mudguards.
Unlike their SKS Chromoplastic stablemates, the 35mm Bluemels guards have a round profile which not only looks better, but ought to be a better fit under dual-pivot brakes than the square-ish SKS.
I used a pair of Sheldon nuts to mount the mudguard brackets to the recessed brake bolts.

I would like these better if they had an external hex for spanner, like the nuts that come with the Berthoud carbon fenders, rather than the 6mm allen hex.

On the positive side, the front nut allows the mudguard to be raised to its maximum height by allowing the mudguard bracket to clear the bottom stack of the headset.
In the past I have removed the bracket entirely and ziptied the guard, in the effective but inelegant Grant Peterson style, to the brake centrebolt .



And finally, today I got to grips with that 12 second delay, self portrait feature on my camera. Here we are, atop Jones Rd, on the way to Hunua.

Movie Night

Since their inception last year, the SOLO Movie nights at the Westwinds Cinema in Avondale have been a not-to-be-missed part of the Auckland cycling social calendar.

This month's offering, 'The Eddy Merckx Story' could be more correctly titled 'The Story of Eddy Merckx in the Tour de France", as it gives only brief mention of his World Hour Record in 1972 and glosses over Merckx's other achievements such as his World Championships.
TV and newsreel racing footage is interspersed with subtitled reminiscences by Tour winners Lucien van Impe, Bernard Thevenet, Joop Zoetemelk & Merckx himself.

The next movie night will be on April 18.
Sign up to the Solo email list for an invite.

Possibly Akarana Cycling Club's finest hour...

Have a look at this video over at David Whittam's new blog.
Can anyone put a date to this, or name any of the participants?

Breakaway- ready to fly

Last week I took the Breakaway to Invercargill so I would have something to ride between sessions of the NZ Track Cycling Championships.

I took this photo to remind myself how the bike should look when packed in it's case, but astute readers will notice that the crucial seat & seatpost are absent.
Fortunately I found them again before we departed.

Needless to say, I didn't get much riding done- the weather was atrocious and the usual Track Nationals combination of malnutrition and lack of sleep kept me inside most afternoons.

More NAHBS

If you have already exhausted yesterdays cornucopia of NAHBS links, here are Dennis Stovers photos on the world famous Wool Jersey Gallery.

North American Handmade Bicycle Show

A few people of my acquaintance didn't get much work done today when they found the photos from last weekend's NAHBS posted on the internet.

www.cyclingnews.com has run three articles to date, featuring road bikes, track irons and utility and town bikes.

Over at CycloFiend there is a photo gallery, plus links to other NAHBS photo sites. Be prepared to waste a few hours.

There's not much to dislike, but this Vanilla, built for US collector Brett Horton, stands out for me as a near-perfect synthesis of classic aesthetics with modern technology.

The number of randonneur and porteur bikes is impressive, considering that neither style had any currency in the english-speaking cycling world until Jan Heine started writing about them in the Rivendell Reader in the late '90s, and then in his own Vintage Bicycle Quarterly (now Bicycle Quarterly).

Breakaway- complete, if not finished.

Last night I brought home a saddlebag full of stuff to build up the Breakaway, and today I knuckled down and built it up into a rideable device.
Though I could have built up a decent drivetrain out of shed junque, I went for 2007 Campagnolo Veloce 10 speed, with the new Ultra-Torque crankset.

This is meant to be a credit card tourer, so I went for a medium cage rear derailler so I can use a 13-29 cluster in future.
Instead of the standard Ergopower levers, I fitted Record bar-end shifters.
Brakes are Campagnolo Triomphe, which have better tyre & mudguard clearance than dual pivots, actuated by Campagnolo Cobalto brake levers.

The frame is built for a 1-1/8" headset, so I pressed in a set of Wheels Manufacturing headset adapters to suit the 1" fork and Ritchey WCS Logic headset. I am partial to cartridge bearing headsets on demountables because they are unlikely to spill ball bearings onto the ground while the bike is being assembled.

The bike is a long way from being finished- the wheels in the photo are old Campagnolo Electrons with Conti tubulars, and the rock-hard & slippery Benotto bar tape is coming off on Monday.
Crank Brothers Quattro pedals are not compatible with my MTB shoes, so will be replaced with Eggbeaters with the short Ti axles.



*Disclaimer- I am deeply implicated in the importation and distribution of Crank Brothers, Campagnolo, Ritchey and Continental in New Zealand.
Nothing that I write about them can necessarily be believed.

Questionable Retro fashion

Adam Lovell and me, modelling our Bicycle Fixation wool gabardine knickers atop One Tree Hill on the way back from the Go by Bike Day breakfast.

With time and mistreatment, my Woolistic jersey from Rivendell Bicycle Works will eventually match the Gillott.

Paint!

Today I removed the surface rust from the Breakaway frame and started painting it using DupliColor acrylic lacquer from the local Repco.

This won't be the final paintjob, just something to make it presentable enough to ride while I am in Invercargill for Track Nationals in a couple of weeks.
When I get back, I'll get it beadblasted and sent to Walter Thorburn to make it look more or less like this.

Wasting time with old bikes, part 2

A few months back Rick Woodward treated himself to a metal polisher, which he initially powered with a coffee grinder motor before embarking on Toolman-esque quest for more power.

The latest motor seems to be meeting with Rick's approval, but I'm wary of any tool that can flick a heavy object across the room at my first lapse of concentration, so lately I've been polishing a few widgets by hand:

This 1995 Chorus seatpost was heavily scratched from being pushed all the way into a small frame.

I removed the worst of the scratches with 120 grit emery tape before polishindg with progrssively finer wet & dry, and finishing with Autosol.

It probably has a home on my Bianchi.

Simon Kennett gave me this pair of 1950's Campagnolo Gran Sport hubs a few years ago.

Until recently they have been waiting for a suitable project (and that's a story for another day).

These Harden hubshells belong to Wayne Davidson from Invercargill, and are part of a transaction so convoluted that probably neither of us knows where or when it will end.

They will look good on one of the English 1950's road /track frames presently cluttering my shed.

Keeping the Breakaway off the backburner

The Auckland Track champs have kept me out of the shed lately, but I have a made a little more progress.
I brazed bidon bosses into the inside of the seatstays (left) for a stealthy Vanilla-style mudguard mount, and cleaned up all my brazing.

I'm still trying to work out how to mount a framefit pump.
My plan was to put a pump peg on the seatstay, but a thumblock head barely clears the Campagnolo Veloce rear hub, so I have to decide whether to put the pump along the top tube or track down something more compact like a Silca Impero.

This afternoon CTB brought around a brand spanking new Brooks Swallow, like this one but in black. The Swallow has longer rails than the rest of the Brooks range so I can get my preferred wayback seat position despite the Breakaway's 73.5 degree seat tube. I could get the same position with a modern plastic saddle, but, naaah, it wouldn't be the same.

Ritchey Breakaway project, part 1

My new project is steel Ritchey Breakaway road frame, that I will build up as a lightweight credit card tourer.

Though Tom Ritchey himself uses a Breakaway for lightweight touring, my requirements are somewhat different, so I made a few changes.

I'm not a fan of carbon fibre, so I built a Reynolds 531 fork with a modified Pacenti crown.

I want to be able to use this bike with fat tyres and/or mudguards, and this fork has plenty of clearance, plus eyelets on the dropouts.

To make the 1" fork fit in the frame, I'll be using a set of Wheels Manufacturing headtube reducers. I considered brazing sleeves into the headtube, but this would prevent a future owner from fitting a 1-1/8" fork.

Clearance between the back tyre and the seatstay bridge is minimal, so I cut the bridge out, and brazed in a new one 6mm higher. These old Campagnolo single pivot brakes are a better fit around mudguards than dual-pivots.

I brazed a bidon boss into the bottom of the bridge to attach the mudguard.

The new bridge is at the maximum reach of a Campagnolo short reach caliper.

Mudguards need a front mount too, so I brazed in a chainstay bridge with a threaded boss.

2007- forthcoming delights

Tokoroa Forest Charity Fun Ride
March 4th
Brought to you by the same folks who run the excellent mid-winter Fun Ride at Okoroire.
I've never done this ride, hopefully this year I will be able to negotiate a day off from track training.
There are three distance options: the 35k Radiata Rambler, 75k Cashmore's Challenge and the 100k Titanic
Click here to download the entry form.

Track Nationals
Invercargill, March 13-17
Donna is of a mind to do some damage to the UCI Masters World Records for 200m & 500m, and what better place than the new indoor velodrome at Invercargill.

Japanese Bike Retro Ride
On a date yet to be decided.
Like the Bianchi Ride last year, use of a Japanese bike is encouraged, but by no means compulsory.
At least four regular members of the Retro Grupetto own classic japanese road bikes, not to forget Keirin Pimps Glenn Selwyn & Chris Tennent-Brown who own NJS approved track bikes.

Chris Kulczycki's Velo Orange blog recently featured a list of links to Japanese framebuilders. Unless you can read Japanese, its best to treat them as an adventure in cyberspace and click on links randomly.

2007, so far

A month into the new year, and most of my recent cycling activity has been only fit to report over here, and accompanied by jolts of pain as my confidence exceeded my skill.
On Sunday morning I repeated the trick on the road, catching the pedal of my Holdsworth fixie on a curb and launching myself onto the street, much to the amusement of my 11 year old niece.

Not all the outings on the Holdsworth have been so painful.
A couple of weeks back I had a bi-modal expedition, catching the train to New Lynn, then riding the Butter Chicken loop from Swanson to Titirangi. I resisted the tempation to catch the train home again, navigating a route through Mt Roskill that avoided the misery of Hillsborough Rd, but also every bakery from New Lynn to Otahuhu.

It's not quite Big Brother...

but I have installed a hit counter, so I know y'all are out there.

Feel free to leave comments, or even email me.

43 Bikes

Jack Bissell's new website 43bikes is worthy of a few hours gawping.

At Velo Rendezvous last year, Jack brought this stunning restored Legnano Roma Olimpiade.
The other bikes on the site are just as good, and there's something for everyone.

There is also a handy page about bike photography on the cheap.
If your budget goes a bit further, try Ray Dobbins page.

Donna's Long Haul Trucker

My Christmas shopping, such as it was, was done at the last minute, and I had no idea what I was going to get for Donna until I saw a 46cm Surly Long Haul Trucker frame for sale on Trademe.

Over the years she has had three different commuting/town bikes, all based on mountain bike frames. All of them required various manky solutions to fit utilitariana such as mudguards, and the riding position was less than ideal once a rigid fork was fitted to a 'suspension adjusted' frame geometry.
The Long Haul Trucker has a braze-on fitting for every conceivable accessory, including several that Donna will never use unless she renounces her short distance, fast-twitch ways. It was a pleasure not to have to attach the mudguards with zip ties, though a spacer was needed behind the chainstay bridge to maintain a pleasing mudguard line.
I like to use good quality parts on these bikes (check out the spec on Donna's old GT Outpost, ferinstance), and this one seemed to justify some top shelf junque I have been saving- Ritchey WCS cantilevers, Nitto 185 bars, and Sugino Pro Dynamic cranks. A few minutes rummaging turned up an all-Suntour gear set- Sprint front derailler, XC Pro short cage rear, and a pair of Superbe Pro friction downtube shifters. The wheels, with Shimano dynohub and Lumotec light came from Donna's Specialized M2 commuter.

Currently, the Carradice Lowsaddle saddlebag sits on the rear mudguard, so a small rear rack will be required. I'm working on something similar to this Sycip rack in 8mm high tensile steel tube.

More photos here at the Wool Jersey Gallery.

Eroica Fashion

Intersection, seemingly a 'lifestyle magazine' for upmarket petrolheads, did a photo shoot at Eroica this year.
Photographer Nick Clements has an impressive portfolio of retro fashion photography, but I don't recall that anyone who actually rode the event looked this clean.

A confluence of fanboy obsessions

A couple of photos from Eric Clapton's Japanese tour blog show that his long standing passion for Cinellis is unabated.

Google turned up a couple of older photos of Clapton taking delivery of a new Cinelli from Antonio Colombo in 1987, and con Cinelli in Milano, October 1988.

Antonio Colombo shares Clapton's love of the blues- his stand at this year's Milan show had a non stop blues soundtrack, which caused me to linger long after I had lost interest in what was on display.

The Condor on the cover of the first edition of Richard's Bicycle Book is rumoured to have been Clapton's. After attacking the Condor with a 10" adjustable spanner and crushing the brake cables, I guess Richard didn't get an invite to feature any of Clapton's Cinellis in later editions.

Pokeno Ride & Swapmeet Report

A small event that deserves to get bigger.
Organised by Denne Parkinson & Craig Bush, who also run the
Pokeno Wheels and Heels in March.

From the Retro Gruppetto there was Peat Alexander, Kim Sinclair (Bianchi Specialissima), Daniel Rosser (Raleigh), Donna Wynd and me; plus Manukau Vets stalwarts Ed Austin (Raleigh 20), Ray Hancock (1963 Rudge) and Reg Hinton (Colian).

Probably the oldest bike was a pre-WW2 coaster braked device, riden by the grandson of the original owner. He had been planning to ride it around Taupo this year, but decided it might not go the distance. Despite a chainring that wobbled alarmingly from side to side, he got along at a good pace.

The swapmeet was a small affair, with only two tables of junque for sale. The biggest transaction of the day was probably Denne Parkinsons acquisition of an old tandem which had been offered on Trademe a few times recently.




Reg Hinton's Colian











Ray Hancock's 1963 Rudge