Commuter Bike #2

A well maintained bike is a happy bike, and my commuter bike has been in need of some happiness for a while. Part of this is intentional. In the caste of bicycles, my commuter would be on the level of Undesirable. The frame is a women's Schwinn Worldsport - unremarkable to two types of cyclists: Hipster/Messengers and Racers. For Hipster/Messengers, it's unappealing because it's inelegant, no one wants women's frames, and I don't have it set up as a fixie. For Racers, dude, that frame is HEAVY. The finishing touches of Undesirable come in the form of the general look of unkempt-ness: the paint is mad-chipped on the frame, the bar tape looks ragged and about to unravel. Thus, even to the third category of cyclists, Ordinary Folks Who Cycle, it looks like it's in dreadful shape. However, this is exactly what I love about this commuter. I'm hoping that this deters people who would steal my bike. This, and a good Kryptonite U-lock, of course.

The big secret of course, is that it runs great. While taking some bicycle maintenance classes, my bike provided a nice example case several times, so it not only received a new cable and housing, but also a newly packed rear hub. The friction shifters are difficult to break, and the chain is pretty stretched out, but i'm not looking for instantaneous shifting on this thing anyways. The cassette looks pretty sturdy/chunky/beefy ... certainly not one of those Shimano/Campy/Sram race worthy deals. The biggest liability was the saddle. Chunks of saddle had long been lost, and I have kept it this long because it makes bike look so delightfully awful, but I decided that the gaping foam gets too wet when it comes to rain. Fortunately, someone on Bike and Build abandoned a saddle last year, so I had a spare one handy. $50 saved!

This saddle has seen better days.

The trick is not to forget how the pieces go together ... I'm more accustomed to the modern seatpost design, and it was rather unnerving to see so many different parts going into clamping a saddle. Also, they are so corroded that I wonder if it's even safe to use them ... ?


Part of learning bicycle maintenance is trouble shooting. The first time I put my saddle back on, I realized that I mounted the clamp backwards. I'm sure it wouldn't have done much lasting damage, but the inner cyclist geek in me squirmed at the thought of other cyclist geeks raising an eyebrow at the awkward saddle clamp ... and it didn't take long to switch it around. Shiny new saddle!

Doughnut Call

After my first day donning the locally famous "Obama Eats Here" shirt professionally, I stopped by at Shop Tati to see how the mayhem was progressing. Most of the shop floor was a colorful array of assorted high quality bike goods, and J himself was pondering the bizarrely stiff carbon headset of Jesse's new Storck. Somehow, I found myself poking a hopelessly giant housing end cap (with cable housing) into a hopelessly small brake arm. And then the cable housing was loose without the housing end cap. Anyways, I started to feel a bit hungry, possibly from busily concocting cappucinos, lattes, and chocolacinos all day long, so I asked if there happened to be random donuts around. There were not. And thus, J made a doughnut call. Within 10 minutes, Miles rolls up to the shop to respond to said doughnut call. And in not much time after that, we were able to feast upon a whole dozen doughnuts. Perhaps my fear of doughnuts has been eradicated today ???

Conclusion: I will still refrain from doughnuts on rides, except in dire (snowy cyclo-cross type) situations.

Jack of all Trades

Been M.I.A. a while trying to figure out how to structure what I would term "real life."

Work Interviews: I had interviews at both Jamba Juice and the Medici Bakery, an interesting comparison of large corporation vs. smaller businesses. Firstly, for Jamba Juice, it was a group interview! I thought they only did those at giant consulting firms, but perhaps the economy is bad enough at the moment. They asked fairly standard questions such as: what Jamba Juice drink would you be, what can you contribute to Jamba Juice, what did you like about your last job, what was a difficult situation you were able to overcome, what do you consider a personal failing. Medici on the other hand, I hardly even knew the interview had started because it was more just conversational. I get the feeling, the manager knew I could handle the work since I'd graduated from Lab, and it was more figuring out if my personality type was a good fit for a place like the Medici. At the same, I also think she got exactly the information she needed to get from me, so it was a much more interesting interview. Medici was definitely the preferred choice by the way, because I would get to wear a shirt that says, "Obama eats here." And ... I will be soon! Medici hired me! Thus, I am soon to be serving fresh baked chocolate croissants, carrot muffins, and Kickapoo Fair Trade Coffee :D

Dry Cleaning: I'm now a permanent part of staff for the time being. I can work at almost all points of the sequence of dry cleaning: tagging shirts/clothing as we receive them, sorting wet shirts according to what day they need to be completed and quantity of starch, pressing tablecloths (pressing shirts is really tricky and takes time to learn), taking the tag off clothes to put on hangers, de-linting, de-pilling, bagging or boxing shirts. I like to count the number of Thomas Pink, Ermenigildo Zegna, Brooks Brothers, Tom James, and obscure Italian brand made in Milan shirts we get. It's a bit absurd how many we get of each ...

Shop Tati: I started volunteering at J's shop. I learn how to build bikes about 25% of the time. So far I've learned the basics of putting on a headset, bottom bracket, cassette, cyclo-cross style breaks, and lacing up a 3 cross wheel. From previous bike learning from awesome Illini friends such as Dillon and Jamie, I already knew a certain amount about configuring cable housing, cables, and tuning front and rear derailleurs, pedals. The other 75% of the time, we discuss what the shop will carry, the color theme, stripey socks, the shop layout, folding bikes, leather saddles, and the "lifestyle" that we want to market. Wouldn't it be great if we could change Hyde Park from mostly car based to mostly bike based? Why wait for the city to create bike paths. Convince people that riding bikes is fashionable, more convenient, and less expensive, and create the demand for more bike friendly roads. It's interesting that J designs his bikes very much the way an architect should design a building, to correlate with the needs of their way of life. I find the entire shop to be a fascinating design project ... can't wait to see it in full action :D

Wild Duck: This past Friday, Bernard and I received free tickets to The Wild Duck, a play directed by Charles Newell of Court Theatre in Hyde Park shown at the MCA Chicago. I had no idea that Charles Newell of UCVC was in fact the person who runs Court Theatre ... he seemed a normal enough cyclist the few times I had been on group rides with him. I was very impressed with the production ... it revived fond memories of 7th and 8th grade when Lab School kids could skip class to attend the matinees for the entire Court Theatre season. The set mainly featured these giant loft style windows stage right, black painted steel stairs stage left, a few spare furniture items, and these giant suspended wood doors. Very converted factory building style ...

Food Shelter: Today, my mom and I went to serve food with our church at Cornerstone Community Outreach. It was interesting ... It was strange to have purportedly homeless people making demands upon us almost as if we were a restaurant (e.g.: "I want coke, not Sprite."), and my mom said she even saw that a lot of people didn't even finish the corn and green beans. She remarked, only in a food shelter in America will you see homeless people throwing food away. Absolutely ridiculous, and even outrageous in a way. A very few people even tried to come back for another tray, and some kids came up asking for more. It's not that I want to sound patronizing, or that I want these people to act servile towards us, but I would have thought that they would at least realize that it was not our job to be there, that the food we brought was bought from private donations from church members, that we were serving them food on an entirely voluntary basis, that they didn't really have a right to make any demands from us. Then again, I've never been in a situation where I had to go to a food shelter for food.

BACKSTREET BOYZZZ ?????

And by Backstreet Boys, I mean Joe, Eric, Curjay, Marty, and Chad. Always.

No, but really, I just saw them live. A friend from lower/middle/high school, Caitlin, had an extra ticket, which who in their right mind would turn it down ??? My friends, I imagine, will react in several different ways. My metal head ex-boyfriends would cry at my lack of taste and be glad they're no longer with me, my indie/experimental/ska/80's/rock/david bowie friends from high school will hopefully excuse my foibles since the rest of my music taste is pretty solid, my panjabi/indie/shakira friends from college would be totally down, and my girlfriends from middle/high school will be not-so-secretly jealous. I think I had about as much fun laughing at the other fans as watching them perform and singing every word to some of their older songs. Oh, and the opening act was Girlicious ... I spent the entire time laughing at them too. Holla!

It also reminded me of the time a bunch of Bike and Builders watched "Step Up Two" together. It had Barbara swearing she'd drop all else for 2 years to be able to dance like a JabbaWockee, and several others claiming they could. For old time's sake:



I also tried driving for the first time in over a year! Hannah Wagley talked about saying "slowing" in her car while driving, and I wasn't unscathed from Bike and Build either. I saw the speedometer hit 45mph, and I tried to pop my eardrums because I thought I was going downhill from a mountain pass (because last time I hit 45mph was on Teton Pass). I also flinched while riding over potholes ...

Not much in other news. The mountain passes in Washington state (that shouldn't have existed :p) killed my chain, so I have a shiny new one now, and I've gone swimming in Lake Michigan. The water feels incredibly warm after the mountain streams. Awww ...

NEBRASKA (Stuart - Valentine - Gordon - Chadron)

Our total mileage in Nebraska is 480 some! I didn't think there could be a state windier than Illinois, but there is, and it's Nebraska.

Perspectives sure change on a trip like this. Previously, if I had done a century, I would have congratulated myself and taken it easy for about a week. On this trip, I rode 82 miles the very next day.

All the rides are blurring together a bit, possibly as a result of the static scenery. The road curves around dry, grassy hills of sandy soil, which are occasionally dotted with cows or ranches. This is my first time seeing a ranch. They even sell cowboy hats and boots here. Any second, the Good the Bad and the Ugly's soundtrack is going to start playing, or Modest Mouse's Lonesome Crowded West.

Plainview - Stuart: Epic. The whole day began with a surreal cast because we had breakfast at a bowling alley bar. Some people bowled while waiting for their breakfast. I decided to ride with sweep that day and partake in the dance parties planned along the way. The Sweep Armada thus consisted of Jeff and Emily (the actual sweeps), Katharine, Michael, and myself. Marty was with us for the morning, and Hannah Wagley for the afternoon. Every 13 miles, we'd stop to have techno/dance music parties on the side of the road. Katharine had a flat, so we had an impromptu one mixed in. We helped her by dancing around her. We got two cars to stop and ask us what in the world we were doing, and one honk. (Actually, I think the first asked if we wanted more beer.) A bunch of other people decided to go see some dinosaur fossils. I kinda wanted to go, but decided the day was going to be long enough without it. Plus, we got to greet them coming back en route by having our largest dance party yet.

The downside of having dance parties and riding with sweep was that I got in super late, and I was also on laundry crew. Stuart was so small that it didn't even have a laundromat, so we drove 10 miles to Atkinsville, to the shadiest laundromat I've ever seen. Many of the machines didn't work, and we had to rewash quite a few loads (some were crusty with the powder laundry soap-blech). While waiting for our laundry, two local guys came up to us to chat. One was a welder from Oregon who was there helping to build an ethanol plant about to open on August 1st. It sounds like they gypsy from worksite to worksite following the work. We also got to talking about politics, and he said he hadn't voted since 1980 (for various reasons)! He seemed really excited about what we were doing for sure though. He also showed us a map of Nebraska, and told us about some of the terrain we were about to expect (at that point, more of the same ...). I'm excited about what'll come about half way through Wyoming.

From Stuart to Valentine was a long 80 some miles, most of which I rode with Jake Curtis and Katherine. The van played some awesome tunes (My Humps, M.I.A, Bohemian Rhapsody) and blocked wind for us for a few miles, which was an amazing start to the day. It was one of the windiest rides I've ever done, but I still think the ride to Roscoe was harder for me to handle, contrary to most people on the trip, I guess. The wind and I came to terms a while back on the cornfields of Illinois. I remember there were rides when I just got really pissed off at it because it's just this massive, inhuman force that doesn't care about me or how hard it was making the ride for me, but after a while I just came to accept it as fact and move on with life because what can I do about it? Nothing. Being angry at it's just a waste of time.

Valentine - Gordon: Valentine was hopping compared to Stuart. Hannah and I were sweeping for the 93 miles to Gordon, so we decided to get some coffee downtown before leaving. Sweeping on long days is pretty killer, just because the day is longest for us. We generally had a hard time going any faster than 12 - 14 mph, but the terrain did start to get hillier which blocked the wind a bit. Every so often there'd be an oasis of irrigated green in the small valleys of hills, and I'd ask Hannah if she saw it too, to make sure it wasn't a mirage. We also had milkshakes at the Sand Cafe and saw polaroids of former Bike and Builders on the wall! About 10 people didn't ride at all or had to ride in the van because of saddle sores or general exhaustion, so it was certainly a rough day for everyone. By the end of it, I switched my cyclocomputer to cadence because distance was climbing oh so slowly from 85 miles, and time was past 7 hours on the saddle. Sweeps got lots of hugs when we got in though, which was sweet.

One thing that made the last 10 miles more difficult was my derailleur clicking. I set up shop right outside the church to try to fix it up, and ended up talking to some kids from the area (Ciara, Jasmine, and Ashleigh) who seemed really excited about seeing so many shiny bicycles in their neighborhood all of a sudden (future Bike and Builders, perhaps?). They were probably really amused by how loopy I was by that point. By the time I really started to look at my bike it was really late, and I wasn't really thinking straight anymore, which is why I called Jamie in desperation to try to troubleshoot the problem. It was a really simple fix of course (the cable tension was too high and the limit screws just a little off), but thanks again, Jamie. One of these days, I'll become self-sufficient when it comes to bikes.

Gordon - Chadron: AMAZING. It was only 47 miles long! I was pretty sore for about the first 5 miles or so and rode behind some people who were already going at a pretty decent clip of 16 mph. And then the van passed me and played "Who Are You" making me all nostalgic for my high school days and drumming, and I took off. My derailleur is working like clockwork again at last. On one downhill, I hit 35 mph for the first time in forever, and I also kept an average pace of 17mph. The scenery finally changed too: larger hills with more trees in addition to sand dunes. As I crested the final hill, I saw Chadron spreading out in front of me, and it was an incredible feeling.

Physically, I'm pretty sore, but holding up alright. Things bothering me include my eyes which feel like sandpaper from the wind, and my forearms which get the most sun exposure. I'm planning to get some anti-itch cream and aloe for that. And actually, my eyes are doing fine compared to yesterday. The Bean Broker 2nd Street Coffee House is a lovely oasis of Wi-Fi and delicious beverages indicative of higher civilization though, and I'm at peace.

Shiny New Sram Chain

A. Dillon came by again today, to make sure I knew how to size a chain for my bicycle. It's different from the 9 speed on my Giant OCR2, in fact. For one, it unfortunately does not come with a link that remains removeable - once locked, it's locked for good. (I'd been really hoping for that to avoid having to use the chain tool. Oh well)

So, first break off the old chain. Chains should be broken as few times as possible because each time wears it down. Shimano chains come with one different looking link that you can push through and break off the end of to the correct size for warranty issues: if some other part of the chain breaks, then the factory messed up, but if it's that one different chain link, you're on your own.

To size the new chain, wrap it around the 2 largest gears on the bike, and then add 2 links (male and female). The power link is a male link, meaning it fits over 2 female ones. Thread the chain through the pulleys in the derailleur properly, put on the powerlink. On this one, I actually had to pedal to get the link to close.

Derailleurs, once again: since the limits were changed in order to prevent myself from mangling my derailleur, hub, wheel, everything (thank you, Vesselin), we changed that back. To review: line up the outermost (smallest) gear with the exterior female link on the pulley on the derailleur. This is way easier to show using a simple diagram - maybe this is why I spoke so late as a child.

Also: I used a Sram chain rather than Shimano 105 because for some odd reason, my bike came with a Sram cassette. Why would you mix a Sram cassette with Shimano 105 components? Financial reasons? I would have thought that keeping everything in the same group would be better since they're designed to go together. Anyways, on a Sram cassette, I heard it's better to have a Sram chain (even with other Shimano parts) so I'm giving it a try.

Gonna take a while ...

This new bike is going to need a lot of tweaking ...

It turns out that there exists a common misconception about handlebars and how they go together. There's a bolt on top, which looks as if it's holding the fork on to the frame - but it isn't actually. Apparently, it's the stem clamping on to the front tube that's actually holding everything in place, and the bolt on top is just to get the right tension on the front assembly (as well as to keep the rider from getting a "core sample" of their chest if they crash). Learn something new everyday. Anyways, the handlebar height is great now.

As for the rear derailleur, apparently it was too far forward (something I never would have guessed), and I hadn't aligned the top cog correctly - it should be to the edge of the chain, not the center. The front derailleur's fine.

THANKS ALEX! Hope your broken bones heal quickly; I know you want to get back on your bike pronto.

Ok, never mind

The cable didn't snap, it just slipped from its bolt on the front derailleur. Guess I should have figured, since it's a new cable (it's still strong and not likely to snap) and a new bike (the bolt wasn't properly tightened).

(I realize that bike mechanicking isn't all that interesting for the world at large, but this blog is also an account for myself, so bear with me. I'm trying to learn this as I go along so I don't have to go running to friends for help every time my bike makes suspicious sounds. Also because I refuse to go along with the stereotype that girls need guys to fix things for them.)

Now the chain keeps skipping. I've had this problem before, and I've been playing with limit screws and cable tension, but the skipping simply won't go away. Did the derailleur hanger get bent while it was shipping ??!?! Is the chain too long? I'm not used to seeing what Shimano 110 is supposed to look like, since I had Shimano Tiagra before this. (110 shifters are so much shinier :D)

At this point, I think I'm beginning to see how bike maintenance can become somewhat addictive. It makes me want to figure out what's wrong, and fix it! It's like a puzzle, or a geometry problem, or architectural design.

At least the front derailleur's working again.

Yikes ...

So, while changing front gears from the smaller ring to the larger, I heard a suspicious snapping sound and it didn't shift. I clicked back and forth uselessly for awhile, before checking the cable (which was slack) and prodding the front derailleur a few times. I guess the cable snapped. The back derailleur is making some odd clicking sounds too. I've been entirely spoiled by the awesome tune-up job that Alex did for me on my Giant OCR2 (which has been running absolutely flawlessly). It's a new bike after all. I know for a fact that the cables need to stretch out (if not snap ...) and I'm sure a lot of other things will need to be tweaked as it settles down.

Well, Alex said he'd be willing to show me how to change the stem around, so maybe I can ask him what he thinks about the rest of the state of this bike.

Now for something completely different (Monty Python, anyone?): Revit, oh Revit, why are you taking so long to install ???

Outdoor/Indoor

Been on rollers quite a bit this week. It took me a while to regain the ability to ride in a straight line - which is pretty important for races and riding in large groups. Maybe it's a good thing I left my trainers down in Urbana. My balancing abilities were all off whack.

Rode up to Montrose Ave or so on the lakefront path the other day. I'm not entirely sure how far; they've got a lot of detours for construction these days. It was sunny and beautiful, but about 7 miles into the ride, I realized I forgot my shoe covers when my toes started freezing. Also, the wind decided to change direction on me from North East to South east. Let's just say I got a good workout.

I heard I can change the height of my handlebars just by flipping the stem upside down, so I might do that until the actual summer ride. I feel like I'm riding on my hoods when I'm in the drops, and that's simply not going to work out for the 2 races I plan to go to.

Also began to buy a great deal of items for the summer from Turin (with Chris Dimmick's generous discount). One of my larger investments, the hydration pack, is now taken care of, as well as a bunch of smaller items such as a chain breaker, extra cleats, gloves, etc.

Happy training :)

30+ mile ride No. 2

Another beautiful, sunny day and less windy. This ride was infinitely easier because I didn't have to deal with the wind on the way back. I suppose there was a north head wind on the way back, but it was only 3-4 mph.

I got a postcard from Shannon in Ireland today ! She found this postcard of a bike named "Amphibious bicycle," and it has what looks like a motorboat engine turbine on it! I wonder how it works exactly ... Sounds like she's having a good time where she is, in cities with names that seem to be straight out of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. I didn't know that there were parts of Ireland where people still spoke Gaelic. I've heard it's a very difficult language to learn.

Mmm, Salad.