Oh those sexy French ladies' frames

I bought a bike on Ebay. I'm really not sure why. I wasn't even drunk. Well, I do know why. It's a nice French Motobécane mixte frame that is the correct size for my wife. And the price was right ($145 including shipping). And as my wife recently lost vision in her left eye, this bike even has got the necessary rear-view mirror included. That was kind of what told me the fates wanted me to buy the bike... Damn those fates!



And I really like French frames. And French Bikes. They're really good sporty practical urban bikes. The problem is that it's a French Bike. ALL the sizes are different. Updating/conversion will not be easy. Maybe the bottom bracket casing can be drilled out to the Italian size for a new bottom bracket. Maybe the handlebars can be replaced with uprights. Maybe the damn thing will sit in my basement forever. She sure is a nice frame.

My old girlfriend had a French bike she loved. Peugeot Frame. Light. But it was broken. And I couldn’t fix it because it was French. I convinced her to give it up for a Raleigh 3-speed. It was heavy. And a pain to work on. But I least I could fix it. I don’t think she was ever happy with the trade.

Hot Karl update

The last bike I assembled for a friend is the Hot Karl. It was a SRAM shifter and it just isn't very good. Shifting problems keep re-happening and the foot hits the guard. The former is exactly the kind of pain-in-the-ass I don't want to deal with. The latter is a basic design flaw that can't be fixed.

I bought the bullet and ordered yet another Shimano Nexus hub. Strange that Sheldon Brown's place seems to have a lock on their sales. I tried to buy one online through Ebay, but the place that was selling the older (heavier) model doesn't have any in stock. Anyway, when the hub comes I think I'll just take it to my bike man and pay him to swap the hubs/build the new wheel. I don't really want to bother. But I do feel I owe my friend a good bike.

[November 10th Update: the Hot Karl is back in business and she's never been hotter.]

Blessed be the bike stands

Since I started doing my own bike repairs back around 1996, I've always wanted a bike stand. But I've never had the money or space for a real one. I had been using this little thing that was basically a workhorse. You took off the front wheel and locked in the quick release and rested the bottom brack on the workhorse. Better than nothing. But fragile. And you couldn't really work on the front wheel or bottom bracket.

Then the past years or two I've had the money but nothing close to the space.

But we moved last month. Into bigger and better digs. With basement. I shelled out around $250 and bought me a nice heavy Park bike stand. Never has a simple consumer purchase made me so happy.

It's so much easier to work on a bike on a stand. And it's the first real clamp I've ever had. So not only does it hold bikes, but I can do little things clamp handlebars and saw them. I could never do that before. Oh the potential...

The Hot Karl

I’m pretty pleased with the Hot Karl. Total cost, around $550. That’s within pennies of Katie’s Del Ray. But with the internal hub, I think the Hot Karl is a nicer bike. It's light, rides great, makes a nice old-school clicking sound as you peddle, and has some flourishes from the Mexican-run bike store (purple chainring bolts and silver handlebar grips).

And my first experience painting a bike. Spray paint is fun... and cheap. I felt a wicked thrill buying it as the man at the hardware store unlocked the case. But despite my outlaw feeling, I don’t think too many taggers buy primer and masking tape with their spray paint.

The only problem with the bike is the damn hub itself. There are two related problems:
1) the shifting mechanism sticks out the side, just waiting to get smashed. There is a metal guard, but I don’t know how long one can go with breaking the damn thing. We’ll see.
2) the front of the external shifting mechanism is teeny bit too close to the pedal. If you’re not careful, the back of the right foot hits it on the backswing. Whether this is a fatal flaw or something that correct pedaling position can cure, I figure we’ll figure out in about a week.

Shimano hubs, of course, don’t have any of these problems. They managed to get everything inside the hub. Those clever Japanese. But I couldn’t buy an internal 5-speed shimano hub on a new, built wheel for the bargain price of $150 dollars. Whether this hub out of be a good buy or wasted money on a flawed design remains to be seen. The frame and wheels cost another $270. Everything else (seat, chain, peddles, brake) cost about $150. The bike still needs fenders. They’ve been ordered on-line. In the end, the total cost will be closer to $600 for parts. Labor is free. And a rack and bags would also be nice. That would be another $50-$100. And the words: “Hot Karl” still need to be painted on the frame in a very bright red.

Putting the bike together right took about 1 1/2 days of labor and 2 trips to the bike store. The bike store is great. They actually made me a $1 coaster-brake strap from scrap. No charge.



The external shift mechanism with metal guard


Removing the external shift mechanism, you can see the shifter pin. This moves in or out to change gears.

purple chainring bolts

locking down the seat with a 3 links of chain

shifter

US flag bell… for the Canadian

blinky handle bar lights

front brakes

rear hub and rear drum brake cable

Introducing the Hot Karl

I went over to Jersey City today. N to the PATH train. It really is easy to get to. It’s kind of like what we say about Queens, I suppose.

And I picked up the bike that will become the Hot Karl. $270. It’s a perfectly sized frame. Light. Steel. Lugged. Two excellent wheels. Bottom bracket. Crank arms. Fork. Handlebars. And break levers. All top of the line. It’s a fixed gear. 26-inch (559, not 650B). My plan is to replace the rear wheel with an internal 5-speed hub that I bought on e-bay. And then sell the fixed gear wheel on e-bay. I don’t have any use for a 26-inch fixed gear wheel. And Karl is not an advanced biker. A fixed gear is not for him. The new wheel should be here any day. The wheels are standard mountain bike



I also got an extra very nice rear wheel (700cc). $70. It’s always good to have backup. It will fit my Bianchi and Katie’s Del Ray. It’s always good to have backup. And with that he gave me handlebars and stem. I don’t really *need* them. But they’re nice and it was quite a bargain.

It’s too bad that I haven’t used the same size wheels for all the bikes. The Bluebird is one size (650B). My bikes and the Del Ray are another (standard road 700). And now the Hot Karl will be a 3rd size (standard mountain bike 26 inch). But when you assemble, sometimes you have to take what you can get. And the standards 700mm size wheel is not the best size because it has no clearance. If only everything was 650B.

On the way home (FYI, you can get a bike through an “iron-maiden” style turnstile. But it takes a little effort), I stopped by the wonderful bike store (see above) near here and bought a chain and front brake and chain ring bolts. The Hot Karl will be sweet.


Once the new real wheel is on, the bike needs:
1) fenders
2) a rear brake cable
3) peddles
4) probably a new seat
5) cable to lock the seat
6) crank arm nuts
7) a proper lock
8) a paint job

The Bluebird's long-lost sister?

You meet the nicest people if keep a bike blog. This is from a man in Sydney, Australia who sells great bike trailers. Buy one if you can. You can get them in the U.S. as well. See his web site for details (just don't expect to find any els on his CTA). I don’t have one yet. But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before I will.

He also built a bike. I like the old parts, rear brake placement, and mixte (lady’s) frame. That’s the kind of frame that I was looking for for Zora’s Bluebird bike. But I couldn’t find one when I was looking. They’re easy to find everywhere in Amsterdam and around the world, but for some reason much harder to find in America. This style has two smaller parallel bars that make up the cross bar.

In fact, add fenders and this is pretty much exactly what I wanted when I started thinking about Bluebird. A wonderful simple light 6-speed lady's bike. But then, being a novice and being lazy (or at least as lazy as someone willing to build a bike can be) and feeling flush because I just started getting a regular paycheck, I went and bought a lot of new parts and put together a much more expensive bike than I originally planned.

I finally after months of house renovation have had time to get my wife's mixte back on the road. It is pretty much as bought except for the Brooks saddle, Sakae peddles, and a new stem. It went into serious disrepair during construction due to improper storage. So I waxed the frame and overhauled the bearings all around. I took the wheels apart, buffed up the chrome steel rims and hubs(old Shimano high flange steel) and rebuilt the wheels with the old steel spokes. That was fun. They came up really well.

So here is picture I took tonight while on a test ride -



It ride like a Cadillac. Very plush, great cruiser.

Thought you might like a picture.

Of course I like a picture. Thanks. And he even waxed the frame. I’ve never even thought of waxing a frame. I don’t do anything to my frame. Or care if it gets scratched. Maybe that’s because I think it’s less likely to get stolen. More likely it’s because I just don’t care. I like to think I look for inner beauty.

Relacing the wheels

I still feel very stupid for building 4 (count ’em, four) wheels incorrectly. Especially when I built wheels just fine before then. Anyway, I got to work on the Bluebird. While I had the rear wheel off, I put on a new rear cog with one fewer teeth. This will hopefully make 5th gear a better cruising gear. There was a little problem as the ideal cruising great seemed to be right between 5th and 6th gear, with 5th being too easy and 6th being to hard.

But the weather is great, so I could work on the porch, which is a minor plus.



Here you can see the incorrect spokes. Notice how bent the spokes are as they curve on the wrong side of the 2nd spokes they cross (the first crossing spoke is right at the hub). So following the path of a spoke on relation to the crossing spokes, I went over-under-over (and also under-over-under) when I should have gone over-over-under (and under-under-over). I also should have figured this out earlier, simply by looking at one of my other wheels when I was building these.



Here is the after picture, with the spokes all straight.



And another picture of the properly laced wheel.



I got faster as I went on. But it’s still time consuming, you have to strip the wheel and remove half the spokes. I realized after doing one side of the first wheel, that there is actually a system, which involves removing every fourth spoke (every other spoke on one side) and then lacing them correctly. And then you do the same on the other side. The time saving part is that you only have to remove the nipples from half the spokes and not all of them. But the whole project took about 6 hours. Luckily for Zora this is all covered under warrantee.

You say living room I say workshop

I don't really need a big living space. But it would be nice to have a workshop (or a guestroom... or an office). But the living room must suffice for all. When I'm in the middle of bike work, it become a mess. And this picture is after the bike has been removed from the center.



But now it's clean. Well at least by my standards, which tends to mean the floor is dusted and the surface areas are covered with clutter.



No matter. Katie's Del-Ray is finished. I biked her (the bike, not Katie) over to the bike store today and got a seat post ($20) and a seat ($25). It wasn't easy to bike on that seatless small bike, but I'm good at riding bikes. And the bike rides well.

Then I made a few hours of adjustments: The kickstand clamp was clamped over the rear shifting cable (oops), the right shifter was too close to the hand, the front derailleur needed adjustment (as it always will), the fenders stays had to be adjusted and tightened, the shifting cable housing between the frame and the rear derailleur had to be replaced (it was too short), I put on Zora's old front light, trued the rear wheel, and popped ferrules on the end of the four cables. She's a fine steed and good to go!

The Fuji Del-Ray

Katie may have a nice frame from between 1983 and 1986. Confirmed, I think, by the Dia Comp rear brake.

http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-99546

"I believe the Del Rey was Fuji's top of the line sport touring bike when it was first introduced. "

"I have a 1983 Del Rey, and I'm pretty sure it was the first year that model was made. It got a good write up in 'Bicycling' that spring, so I bought one. Price was $300. It came with Sun Tour Vx derailleurs, Sugino 52/42 crankset, Dia Comp brakes and levers, Ukui (sp) rims and I can't remember the name of the hubs. Nitto bars and stem. The weight was advertised as 24lbs. although I never weighed it. The frame is quad butted Valite steel tubing as T-Mar mentioned. And yes, the Del Rey model became a hybrid around 1986 ~."

"I've put over 50k miles on it over the years. I still ride it occasionally; although I've graduated to lighter and faster bikes, I never forget the sweet ride."

"The Del Ray was a 1980s model. I have specs for 1984-1986 and it cost $300-350 US. It's a bit arbitrary on where to draw the line between different levels, but I'd call this upper, entry level. At best, it's lower mid-range. All these version used Fuji's own Valite, quad-butted tubing and various SunTour/Sugino/Dia-Compe component mixes. The 1986 version did have a triple chainring, which would explain your touring description."


Note that Katie’s frame has little if any relation to the crappy aluminum hybrid bike Fuji now makes under the used-to-be-classy Del-Ray name.

Introducing Katie's Bike!

Just cause I don't post much doesn't mean I'm not busy building bikes. My friend Katie needed a bike. She was pretty jealous of the Bluebird, as she should be. So I said, what the hell, I'll put together a little something for you. This one I tried to do on the cheap. But that still means $500. But that's half the price of the Bluebird. I reused as many parts as I could. Not most. But I had cranks and chainrings and handlebars and brakes and a front wheel and a rear hub. All free! Well, free for Katie. I don't think anybody gave them to me. But I'm happy to put them to good use. And the frame was a steal on e-bay: $60 for a nice frame including headset, bottom bracket, and rear brakes.

So why can't a build a bike for less $500? Mostly the wheels. I won't chintz on them. Cheap wheels will give you a biketime of problems. And who’s going to be fixing my friends' bikes? Me, of course. So better they spend money and I make a good bike and have fewer hassle in the future. So even with a spare wheel and a hub laying around, the wheels still cost $210. The rear rim and spokes cost $62, the tires costs $90 for the pair, and fenders cost $45. That’s $220 right there. Add $70 for new derailleur and $25 for shifters and Bob’s your uncle.

I'm sold on expensive tires. Cheap tires get flats. So do old tires. And both can be dangerous, if they slip and fall when you need them most. Ultimately your life does depend on where rubber meets road. But it's the no-flat thing that sold me.

I accidentally bought $50 tires for my Bianchi last Spring. I thought it was $50 for the pair, but it wasn’t. So then I had to spend another $50 to complete the set. (I just found the same tires for $40 each when looking for Katie’s tires. I got two spare for me. But they’re still not cheap.)

Before I put on the expensive tires, my tires cost about half as much: $50 for the pair. I was getting flats about once a month. New York streets are rough. Lots of glass. Flats suck. Since I put on the expensive Continental tires in February of 2004, it’s been 16 months without a flat. They paid for themselves in saved tubes alone! And saved hassle? Priceless. I’m sold.

I didn’t take pictures of building Katie’s bike. We’ve been (slowly) working on it together for a little while. It’s pretty much done now, except for a seat post and seat. If only we had a good name.







I found that (yet) another bike can be kept in this nook in the bathroom. I’m pretty sure I have more bikes per square foot of living space than do most people.




Here are three of my bikes. In order: Katie's, the Screamin' Salmon, and my Bianchi. If I ever need a flag, I think I'll use these three colors. Not shown are the two outside and the folding bike in the closet.

The Bluebird is complete!

I had a free day and the parts to use it.

My goals were to install the rear brake, shorten the cable housing, and install a new center-pull front brake cables right size. It was mission half-accomplished.

The rear-brake installation was rather straight forward.



The new center-pull brakes, however, don't work. They look nice...



But the clearance is too short. This pisses me off because they cost me around $35 and the seller on e-bay gave me a measurement that should have worked, but was wrong. You can see how the brake pads end up hitting the tire. That makes them useless for this bike.



So, alas, I had to go back to the side-pull brakes.

Side-pull aren't supposed to be worse than center-pull, but I find that side pull never stay centered as well, at least the cheap ones (The side-pull brakes on my Bianchi work just fine). And the center-pull brakes are shimano, and the side-pull aren't.

But I had to leave on the front-brake cable hanger, because it also serves a space-taker needed on the head set. Maybe Zora can place a flower in it or something.


And I re-cabled the shifter and brakes. Unfortunately the cable holders for the chain stay are sized for the vertical part of the chain stay, which is smaller than the horizontal stays that I needed to attach them to. That means I can't use them and have to run an entirely housed cable for the length of the bike. Not the end of the world, but aesthetically worse and not what I wanted. But such it shall be. A small compromise.

Then since they weren't needed, I removed the snazzy little cable holder that attaches to the brazed-on part on the down tube. This leave a little bike part naked. But that’s a common sight on fixed-gear bikes and any refitted derailleurless bike, so there’s a certain urban cachet to it, I guess. Of course the removed part also cost me $15.



In the front, now all the cable housing are the correct length.



And with that, the bluebird in complete! It is April 5, 2005, about a month after a started. Meanwhile, Katie needs a bike, and I have lots of bike parts on the back porch...

Here's to you, Ken! (glug)

Write and ye shall receive. Ken "Why would someone devote a website to an obscure tire size?" Stagg left a very useful comment:
"You can fix the large gap between the tire and fender at the bottom bracket with a wine cork and a longer zip tie. Cut the cork to the proper length, drill out the center and thread the zip tie through it (both ways). I did this with my Heron conversion but haven't taken any pictures of the detail yet."

It's simply a brilliant idea. There are so many good aspects to this mini-project:
1) It involves wine. Luckily, I had just openned a bottle when I read this comment. Even more luckily, I "spurged" on a $12 bottle of wine, which means the cork is of halfway-decent quality.



2) By moving the fender back, I can access the kickstand screw with my wrench and have no problem tightening it.

3) The fender looks normal now!

After removal of the kickstand, you can get a good idea of the small space.


Then I drill a hole throught he cork. Interestingly, this is the only use of a power tool in the whole bike building process.



The cork is installed.


And the finished product:

Doh! (and I love pin spanners)

It turns out I already have a 14mm socket wrench. It came with a bike toolset. I forgot because I’ve probably never used it. Anyway, I e-mailed Rivendell and told them to cancel that part of the order (I also ordered CDs of all their back Reader issues). I don't think it will be a problem.

Here’s the wrench (the 14mm side is facing away from the camera. Of course, it still won’t work on the kickstand nut because the seat-post tube is in the way.



I did, however, check the crank-arm nuts (important part that connects the crank arm to the bottom bracket). The nuts were turn-with-your-hand loose. Yikes. I knew I didn’t tighten them well (for lack of a 14mm socket wrench). But having one of those fall off would be dangerous, to say the least.

Getting to these nuts allowed me to use one of my favorite tools, the pin spanner! I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do. It’s primary purpose is to take off old-style bottom brackets. But it’s also needed for screwing off and on the crank-arm dust caps. (For light-weight duty, of course, you could use spoke ends or very small allen wrenchs. But that's no fun.)


This pin spanner is surprisingly versatile. Though I can’t think of any examples offhand, I know I’ve used this tool countless times for things unrelated to bicycles. And you can be pretty certain that when a strange little adjustable two-pinned contraption is what you need, nothing else will do. And as I like to say, “There’s nothing like a good tool properly misused.”

14 mm wrench

After 33 years of never needed a 14mm wrench, I now have two parts on the Bluebird that need a 14mm socket wrench: the old-school crank-arm nuts and the kickstand tighening nut. So I ordered one. $14 from Rivendell.

Tight squeeze

I had a tough time putting on the kickstand. Zora's old kickstand turns out to work just fine. I guess new ones just come extra-long to fit all bikes, and you cut it down to size. But, kind of strange for Rivendell to sell them assuming the buyer has a grinder. I mean, I'm building a bike and I don't have a grinder.




There's not much room for the kickstand (you can also see the bottom bracket spindle is a few millimeters too long as well). You can barely see part of the metal stay between the fender and the kickstand clamp. There's a small hole in it for attaching the fender. But installing the kickstand necessitated replacing this little screw with a zip tie. This town wasn't big enough for the little fender-screw nut and the big-ass kickstand screw that attaches the kickstand to the kickstand clamp. So the fender screw had to go.

The clamp attaching the kickstand is actually very rare, but available at Rivendell so that nice bikes can have kickstands. You won't find it in their on-line catalog. But they have them. I'm wondering if I should get a kickstand on my Bianchi. I probably won't.

And I don't have a 14mm wrench (I've got every other size), so I can't tighten it very well. The adjustable wrench is a bit too big to get in there.

You can also see what I consider the only funny-looking part of the bike as a result of the 650B wheels: the large gap near the bottom bracket between the fender and the rear wheel. Oh well.

Here's a shot of the rear cog. I'm showing it because of the two little yellow lines on the shifter. They're supposed to line up in fourth gear. It's a nice little Shimano system for easy shifter-cable adjusting. You can make minor adjustments in the cable with barrel adjusters. It sure as hell beats the guess work of adjusting an old Sturmey-Archer hub (and the no-traction danger of being between gears on a Sturmey-Archer). Sturmey-Archer is the standard old 3-speed hub found on old Raleighs--great bikes, but a bitch to work on with their English measurements, cottered cranks, and their everything-comes-apart-what's-Shimano components.




And, perhaps most importantly, Zora came back home last night. She was very happy to see her bike (though it wasn't a surprise, given this blog and my tendency to shift all conversation to things bike-related)... and me too, of course.

She had to run off to work today and will take the Bluebird for their maiden ride tomorrow, I assume. I'll be there with a camera, like for the first ride after you remove the training wheels.

Headset

I got a headset wrench in the mail today.


My old one is “multisized” and not very good at any of them. Tools pay for themselves, some tool seller once said. I got that and a new front light and some dorky (or cool) handlebar-end lights. They don’t fit on my bike though, which was the plan. But they do fit on the Bluebird. I guess that’s where they’ll go. All this stuff adds up, money wise. But I don’t count late accessories received after the bike is ridable as part of the bike. Shifty mental accounting. This is an operating expense.

But there is something weird about the headset. I repacked it with grease. Fine enough. But the locking nut can’t go down far enough. There is already one space-taking washer in there (strange, I said, when I first saw it). but I guess it needs two.

And I think I bent the front fork slightly getting it in the car last night. Not enough for me to do anything about it. But now you have to apply a little spreading force to get the front wheel on. Godverdomme.

The Bluebird: Day One

The Bluebird came out fighting today. A trial by fire… and ice. She’s a great bike. Rides well. I’m not quite certain what makes a bike a good ride. So as I’m building her, I can’t help but worry: what if she’s not a good bike?

One test of a well riding bike is: can you take your hands off the handlebars. I’ve never been too comfortable with no-hands riding, but it’s still a good test. A bike should stay straight and true. The Bluebird does.

The Bluebird passed the test with flying colors. Light, fast, frisky, and eager to please. She came back home in pieces, but that wasn’t the bike’s fault. I had to take off the front wheel and the handlebars to fit in the back seat of Katie’s car coming back from nice drinks with Deb and Joel in Greenpoint. I have nothing to prove. I rode to school and back to Greenpoint. And even I, very rarely, say, “yes, thanks, I will take you up on that ride.” It’s nasty out.

The funny thing is that the last time I rode my bike in such bad weather was the last time I was Greenpoint with Deb and Joel (they were getting married). Maybe that's why I try and stay in Queens.

Given the weather here, I wouldn’t have ridden to work. But I had to scout out a meeting place for a meeting I have tomorrow in midtown. So I rode her to work. It was hailing. I don’t mind cold, and rain, or most weather. But hail sucks. It hits your face and hurts. But the bike itself was great.

The hail today wasn't constant, but it’s there. Hail hits your face like little cold pinpricks. Did I mention it hurts? You have to put your head down to let the bike helmet take the harsh blows. The hail was bad for a few blocks right when I left school and then again going across the bridge. But leaving the hail aside, the traction was fine.

Bikes are surprisingly good in weather even when driving seem precarious. Whatever physics keeps a bike upright takes you right through snow and over ice. I learned about that in physics in high school. It all seems hazy now, but that spinning wheel works some magic.

My foul-weather riding gear consists of: a brimmed helmet or hat (so you can lower your head and not get rain or hail in your eyes), cheap Dutch rain pants over blue jeans, normal shoes, wool socks, some rain resistant jacket, and gloves that have an outer waterproof cover. It’s really not that much. And glasses aren’t good to wear when it’s raining.

The gear ratio on the bike seems pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. I had to choose the number of teeth on the front and rear cogs. It matters. I tried to figure it out:
1) based on the bikes I have and knowing that fifth gear on the Shimano Nexus is the "natural" gear.
2) based on Sheldon Brown's concept of gain ratio. I tried to make the gear range as close as possible to the gear range on my trusty old well-loved great-in-the-city 14-speed bianchi road bike.
Still, I didn’t have much confidence in my figuring. But I guess I figured it out pretty well.

I have strong legs, but first gear seems plenty low enough for all of New York’s need. And 8th gear allows you to peddle hard while going downhill on the Queensboro bridge. So that seems perfect. And she’s got full fenders, so biking through rain, snow, and hail with accumulating slush on the ground wasn’t so bad.

The difference between winter here and, say, in Chicago is that in Chicago, winter comes and stays. In late December and January and February, Chicago has winter. There’s no denying it. People put on hats and snow is on the ground and it’s cold. Brutally cold for a few weeks. But in New York, winter comes in week or two bursts. And then people bitch about winter weather because they never accept it. Because winter never sets on New York so that the only hope for salvation is Spring.

The past couple of weeks here have been seasonally beautiful weather. But today we have entered a period of Amsterdam-like miserableness. Oh well.

But the Bluebird was great today. I rode with extra tools (10mm wrench for the brakes, adjustable wrench, spoke wrench, allen wrench set). I expected some parts I forgot to tighten to fly off. But all seemed in order. No funny sounds. The wheels stayed true.

It's always wise when you make repairs to bring the tools for that repair with you for the first ride. But I didn't bring flat-tire changing tools. There's no point, given this bike’s rear wheel. It's a bitch to remove. The Bluebird isn't a change-the-flat on-the-fly bike. But Zora's isn't going to change a flat on the way home. So it doesn't matter. If you get a flat, take the subway. That's why we live in New York.

It was slow riding, though. Braking power was minimal because of the wetness. But that only makes me want to hook up that weather-proof rear roller brake even more.

The bike itself was a dream: sporty and fun, just like I was hoping. The handlebars have no grips and are just wrapped with a thin layer of electrical tape, but this weather demands gloves, so it wasn’t so bad.

And I cleaned up the living room and put away all the tools and took out all the trash.

Tomorrow I’ll put the bike back together and eagerly await Zora’s return.

Here's the bike. She's got a lock, a light, and even a bell!


It is March 23, 2005. About three months after I starting thinking about this project and about three weeks after I actually started buying parts.

The Bluebird is ready to fly

I got the package of fenders and tubes today! This bike reminds me of that old Johnnie Cash song where he builds a car "one piece at time." Of course, that didn't cost him a dime. But it's interesting to see a bike come entirely in the mail.

I fixed the bike tire (man, that new tire is tough to get on, with its tight bead.)

I installed the fenders and put on Zora's rack and bags. One great thing about the fenders is that the fender stays provide a sort of structure that will keep the bottom corners of the saddle bags out of the rear-wheel spokes (a contant problem of saddle bags). The Bluebird is starting to look like a real bike. And though I've still got to redo the cables and hook up the rear roller brake, she is, in fact, ready to ride!




Meanwhile, I'll be happy to clean up and get my, uh, "workshop" back.

The 26-foot test track

I put in the tubes (I'm afraid there's a slow leak already in the rear tube, but I'm not sure. Maybe the valve was just leaking at first, but now it's fine? But some air was definitely coming out. But now it seem to be fine. I'll guess I'll know in the morning). The tires list their maximum pressure in BAR, 5 of them. How cute. I've never seen that on a bike! Those crazy French.

I seem to remember from high-school chem/phys that a BAR is about 1 atmosphere. But that doesn't help me. Tires in Amuurica are inflated in PSI, pounds per square inch. Luckily, the web tells me that 5 bars is equal to about 75 PSI, which isn't bad for a 32mm-wide tire. I'll put the front at 70 and the rear at 80.

Then I rode the bike down the 26-foot test track.

I'm a professional driver and this is a closed course, so no worries, mate. The track runs from the rear wheel in the bathroom to front wheel hitting the counters under the kitchen sick. That's over 3 full wheel revolutions! The test track is 2-feet wide at it's narrowest, as it passes the table by the front door. So don't try this at home. Plus there are clogs and stools to avoid.

Anyway, the wheels creaked a bit, which is what I wanted. Less than I expected, which is good sign that the wheels are built well. The creaking is sound of the spokes settling into place under the 200-some pounds of me on the bike. And all seems well...

...except the damn rear wheel which is going flat. Fuck. I could have bought an extra tube, but no, I thought, "why buy an extra tube when six are coming in the mail?" But now I can't ride the bike until I get another tube. Oh well, I got to put weight on the wheels. I guess there's really nothing anything else for me to do until the new cables or the fenders or Zora arrives at my door.

On the plus side, the toe clips seem to have enough clearance, at least for a few peddle revolutions as you get the bike going.

You can also see the obvious difference between the clearance on a standard 27-inch (700mm) wheel.


No room for fenders or nothing!

On the otherhand, the Bluebird sports sexy 26-inch (650B) wheels. Look at all this exciting room:



What's the downside? None that I can think of.

Back to the Bluebird: Damn those cables

Back from Chicago, the brakes had arrived. But annoyingly, the tubes and fenders weren’t even shipped from Boston. Some screw up on their end.

I don’t like putting cables on bikes. I never had. I don’t know why. It always takes longer than it should. It’s hard to cut cable housing. And getting the length just right is important.

And I kind of screwed up doing it. "Kind of" because I’ve got to buy more parts and do it again. But only kind of because the bike is functional as is. It’s just not how I want it.

Cable housing is important not to protect the cable (cables can take care of themselves), but rather to provide compression-proof strength. It’s not intuitively obvious to me, but if there was no cable housing, when you squeeze a brake level, nothing would happen.

Think of trying to pull something with string. If there’s slack in the string, and you pull the string an inch, the string just gets a little less slack. To pull, the string or cable has to be tight. But bike cables are never tight, because they have to curve and accommodate the handlebars swinging around.

Road bikes use cable housing at the beginning and end sections and un-housed cable running along the tube lengths, using the frame itself and little welded cable holder to keep everything fixed for the length of the bike. The cable housing serves as a rigid frame which allows the otherwise slack cable to actually pull something.

Here's the rear brake set up on my bianchi road bike:
proper cable setup



Anyway, the first thing I did was cut the shifter cable housing to make it fit the snazzy little cable holder the bike is made for (and had to buy this little piece for the not bargain price of $15).




Then I realized that the whole set up with these components is meant to have the housing run the whole length, which leaves nothing (like the bike not having cable fixtures) to chance. The problem with this intended system is that it doesn’t look good to have cable housing running the length of the bike attached with zip ties, it wastes the nice features of the frame, and the brakes and shifting would probably be more sluggish since the long length of cable housing probably would have some amount of compression in it.

Here's a shot of the bottom bracket cable guide. But it only works for un-housed cable:



The problem with the way I want it is that there is no cable holding fixture on the right side of the chain stay, since these frames aren’t built for internal hub brakes. And the fixture for the derailleur-shifting cable on the left side is positioned for a derailleur and not this kind of shifting hub.



I also didn’t initially see how the rear brake has a built in holder for the housing.


The brake arm is the black piece hanging down kind of on the right. When it pulls forward (left in the picture), the brake activates. The black piece coming out to the left is where both the chain stay attachment and the holder for this special nut that attaches to the bottom of the piece. This special nut then holds the end of the cable housing. (The shiny piece to its left, hanging down from the chainstay, is the brake arm clamp that will have to attached to the same black piece before the brake can work safely.) If you zoom on the picture, you can also see the screw that goes into the drop out. I was actually quite pleased to get a frame that has this feature. This, I have to assume, is designed to make it easy to reinstall the back wheel to just the right position. This is kind of useful because the chain tension has to be just so, not too loose or too tight. And the wheel has to be properly centered in the frame. It's not something you need, but it's kind of nice to have.

By the time I did figure all this out, I had already cut the cable and now it’s too short to reach to the rear hub brake (a much longer distance from the brake handles than the distance to standard rear squeeze brakes).

So I had to order little cable-holding clamps for the chain stays. And new cables (which are cheap). And new housing (which is expensive). That means at least another week for delivery. Sigh.

On the plus side, I did rig up the rear caliper brakes that came with the brake set (I only needed the front brake, but they came as a set). But they’ll go when I get the roller brake connected. And the front brakes are fine, even though the housing needs to be shortened some more. But I want to make sure the handlebars are at the right height before I make the cables too short.

And I put on Zora’s old peddles. There may be a ground-clearance problem with her toe clips if they're facing down when not being used. The peddles are a centimeter or so closer to the ground than on her old bike. But we’ll see. Maybe not. I did buy some new-fangled “power grips” to replace to toe clips. I've never seen them, but they sound cool. And unlike toe clips, they're not rigid.




They may be great, but we may never know as they’re not compatible with Zora’s peddles (which have screws only on one side). So if the toe clips don’t work, then we’ll have to get new peddles.

But as soon as I get some inner tubes installed, the Bluebird will, if not be finished, at least be rideable and ready to go!




The hand grips aren't really on yet either. Everything has to be in place before the hand grips go on for good. They kind of finalize everything as they're a pain to remove and prevent anything else from being replaced.

Maybe I can get some tubes tomorrow just to get the bike on the road. And I ordered a thin cable to lock the seat from dumbasses who would steal it. Of course, a cable isn't a lock. How are you supposed to lock anything with a cable? None of the places that sell “cable locks” explain that dilemma. I guess they would protect quick release items. But thieves around here carry allen wrenches. But some guy in a bike store in Brooklyn told me how a bike chain makes a great lock. They’re strong, and thieves don’t carry chain-link removers. But chains are also heavy and metal. So I use just a few links of bike chain to lock the cable to the seat.



I also hope the Bluebird doesn’t get a lot of flat tires in her rear wheel. With good new tires, she won’t get a lot. But when she does, you have to take off the brake-arm clip and the shifter cable and the brake cable before you can take the wheel off. Kind of a pain. I could get tire liners, but that isn’t part of the fast-bike vision.